Law and politics drew their soberer minds.
Very different were the conditions which confronted the pioneers in the first American "West." There every jewel of promise was ringed round with hostility.

The cheap land the pioneer had purchased at a nominal price, or the free land he had taken by "tomahawk claim"-- that is by cutting his name into the bark of a deadened tree, usually beside a spring--supported a forest of tall trunks and interlacing leafage.

The long grass and weeds which covered the ground in a wealth of natural pasturage harbored the poisonous copperhead and the rattlesnake and, being shaded by the overhead foliage, they held the heavy dews and bred swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and big flies which tortured both men and cattle.

To protect the cattle and horses from the attacks of these pests the settlers were obliged to build large "smudges"-- fires of green timber--against the wind.

The animals soon learned to back up into the dense smoke and to move from one grazing spot to another as the wind changed.