It was no home when he got there, only a heap of ashes and a few weed-grown acres.

No familiar face greeted him; not even a slave was left.
He had honestly endeavored to remain there, to face the future and work it out alone; he persuaded himself to feel that this was his paramount duty to the State, to the memory of the dead.

But those very years of army life made such a task impossible; the dull, dead monotony of routine, the loneliness, the slowness of results, became intolerable.

As it came to thousands of his comrades, the call of the West came to him, and at last he yielded, and drifted toward the frontier.

The life there fascinated him, drawing him deeper and deeper into its swirling vortex.
He became freighter, mail carrier, hunter, government scout, cowboy foreman.