It kind o' stays yer appetite, an' I suppose that's all a man like me can expect in this world o' sorrow." At this point a tall, raw-boned woman in "a brindle dress" (to quote the phrase of Samson), wearing a large gilt pin just below her collar, with an orthographic design which spelled the name Minnie, approached the hero and boldly boxed his ears.
"Licked at last," he shouted as he picked up his hat, dislodged by the violence he had suffered, and retired from the scene with a good-natured laugh.
Sarah was a bit dismayed by the behavior of these rough forerunners of civilization.
"Don't worry," said Samson, as they were driving away on the Lake Road next morning.

"The lake and river boatmen are the roughest fellers in the West, and they're not half as bad as they look an' talk.

Their deviltry is all on the outside.

They tell me that there isn't one o' those boys who wouldn't give his life to help a woman, an' I guess it's so." They had the lake view and its cool breeze on their way to Silver Creek, Dunkirk and Erie, and a rough way it was in those days.
Enough has been written of this long and wearisome journey, but the worst of it was ahead of them--much the worst of it--in the swamp flats of Ohio and Indiana.

In one of the former a wagon wheel broke down, and that day Sarah began to shake with ague and burn with fever.