THE OLD MUZZLE-LOADING RIFLE. 75 



spun, its pioneer-like independence and adventure and 

 simplicity of life. I again shoulder the old muzzle- 

 loader and shoot a brace of squirrels before breakfast. 

 The older generation, tottering and wrinkled, is 

 passing into a loving remembrance and is giving way 

 to the new. The past, with its inimitably beautiful 

 romance and its things of pathos and love, has given 

 place in a large measure, except in memory, to the 

 present, with its energy, glowing life, hopes, and its 

 own romance and poetry — that, too, soon to be a tale 

 and perhaps to be forgotten. The hills in the distance, 

 as seen from the old homestead, seem to me in their 

 sunset glory to be the symbol of the great West, the 

 West that was filled with romance and adventure, and 

 of which we all dreamed, and for which we longed, 

 in childhood. A good deal of the old woods has been 

 cleared away now, and the green hills beyond can be 

 seen more plainly. The pioneer has left the old home- 

 stead, and has gone far beyond into the regions of the 

 prairie and the great forest ; and with him 

 the older, aye, and perhaps the better, 

 because the more simple, life — with all 

 its ennobling and precious and endur- 

 ing associations, still so dear to 

 many hearts — has gone now forever^ 

 never to return, brushed aside like a 

 cobweb by the relentless onward march 

 of progress. But the memory of it clings, 

 and will linger and cling through the 

 years, for from such beginnings sprang 

 the bone and sinew of the nation. 



ANTLERS AND 



POWDER-HORN 



