CHAPTER VI.
"THREE DESPERATE YEARS." Pioneering to-day is not so serious a matter as it once was.

To the frontiers' man now it involves little risk, and little thought, to dispose of his holding, and make a dash further West for two or three hundreds of miles across the plains.

When he wishes more land for his growing sons, he "sells out," fits up his commodious covered wagon, called "the prairie schooner," and with implements, supplies, cattle and horses, starts on the Western "trail." His wife and children are in high spirits.

When a running stream or spring is reached on the way he stops and camps.

His journey taken when the weather is fine and when the mosquitoes are gone is a diversion.