He longed for the freedom of the wilderness; for the sublime scenes of nature, to which such a life would introduce him; for the exciting chase of the buffalo, and the lucrative pursuits of the trapper, floating on distant streams in the birch canoe, and loading his bark with rich furs, which ever commanded a ready sale.
All these little settlements were clustered around some protecting fort.

A man, who was brought up in the remote West, furnishes the following interesting incident in his own personal experience.

It gives a very graphic description of the alarms to which these pioneers were exposed: "The fort to which my father belonged was three-quarters of a mile from his farm.

But when this fort went to decay and was unfit for use, a new one was built near our own house.

I well remember, when a little boy, the family were sometimes waked up in the dead of night by an express, with the report that the Indians were at hand.