EARLY DAY STORIES. 181 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

 Hunting Stories and Habits of the Wild Animals. 



My whole life from infancy to the present time has 

 been spent either on or near the frontier. This country, 

 right here in Antelope county, which has now been settled 

 forty-seven years, is the oldest settled place that I have ever 

 lived in. Although it is still a new country here, or at least 

 is so regarded, it is taking on, or rather has already taken 

 on the appearance, and customs, and peculiarities of an old 

 settled country. However, if there is still a frontier coun- 

 try anywhere in the United States, which perhaps is ques- 

 tionable, we who live here in Antelope county are living 

 close neighbor to it. Large portions of the western part of 

 Nebraska are still about as new as any part of the United 

 States proper, excepting, of course, desert and mountain- 

 ous tracts unfit for settlement. It is not at all strange that 

 one who has spent nearly the whole of a long life amid the 

 scenes common to the frontier, should look back longingly 

 to the former days, after such changes have taken place 

 about him as to remove all traces of those primitive sur- 

 roundings that were once so familiar and attractive. Rather 

 would it be strange if he did not look back to those times 

 and scenes of long ago with a feeling of regret akin to home- 

 sickness. 



It is probable that not a few of the pioneers of Ante- 

 lope county who have been spared to the present time, would 

 pull out and go to a new country a thousand miles away, if 

 such a place could be found as rich in soil, and as attractive 

 in appearance, and in every way as inviting as was Antelope 

 county in the early days — that is, of course, if they had 

 health and strength to do so. The fascination of frontier 



