It becomes an affair of rawhide for leather, buckskin for cloth, venison for canned tomatoes.
We feel that his steps are planted on solid earth, for civilizations may crumble without disturbing his magnificent self-poise.

In him we perceive dimly his environment.

He has something about him which other men do not possess--a frank clearness of the eye, a swing of the shoulder, a carriage of the hips, a tilt of the hat, an air of muscular well-being which marks him as belonging to the advance guard, whether he wears buckskin, mackinaw, sombrero, or broadcloth.

The woods are there, the plains, the rivers.

Snow is there, and the line of the prairie.
Mountain peaks and still pine forests have impressed themselves subtly; so that when we turn to admire his unconsciously graceful swing, we seem to hear the ax biting the pine, or the prospector's pick tapping the rock.