WESTERN FIELD SPORTS IN EARLY DAYS. 269 



showing a natural politeness which was very pleasant. 

 He was a charcoal-burner as well as ferryman, which 

 accounted for the blackness of his countenance. The 

 ferry-boat being on the other bank, he took us across in 

 a dug-out. The river being high, with a heavy current, 

 and about a mile wide, the passage seemed rather peril- 

 ous. He called an assistant, and went over with the flat- 

 boat for our wagon and horses. 



We were in Jackson County, Iowa, which territory 

 was settled only about thirty mUes west of the river, 

 and that sparsely. We found shelter in a log cabin that 

 night, and in the morning we went west to look for the 

 claim of two Chicago men, who had gone there a year 

 before, and who had invited us to visit them. At noon, 

 we stopped at the cabin of an old patriarch lately arrived 

 from Illinois, with wife, sons, daughters, sons-in-law, 

 and grandchildren — a dozen or more — not one of them 

 with a shoe or a hat, and with nothing in the house to 

 eat except boiled corn and venison; but they all seemed 

 happy and contented, and gave us of what they had. 

 The old man was one of the pioneers; he had moved 

 first from Ohio to Illinois, and when that State became 

 too thickly settled to suit him, he came to Iowa. While 

 we were there, one of the daughters had a fit, and Doctor 



T ', with his pocket-knife, opened a vein and relieved 



her. 



From the cabin of this philosopher of the wilderness, 

 we traveled a few hours, until we found our friends' 

 place, which was also a lodge in a vast wilderness. There 

 we staid two days while our friends were organizing a 

 hunting-party. This was hard on the lady of the house, 

 who had to do the house-work, servants not being 

 obtainable. 



On the third day we started — our hosts, two neighbors, 

 the Doctor, and myself — in two wagons, with camp equi- 



