CHAPTER FIVE.
THE CAMP OF THE BOY HUNTERS.
Our young adventurers turned their faces westward, and were soon riding under the shadows of majestic woods.

At this time there were few white settlements west of the Mississippi river.

The small towns upon its banks, with here and there a settler's "clearing" or a squatter's cabin, were the only signs of civilisation to be met with.

A single day's ride in a westerly direction would carry the traveller clear of all these, and launch him at once into the labyrinth of swamps and woods, that stretched away for hundreds of miles before him.

It is true, there were some scattered settlements upon the bayous farther west, but most of the country between them was a wilderness.
In an hour or so our travellers had ridden clear of the settlements that surrounded Point Coupee, and were following the forest "trails," rarely travelled except by roving Indians, or the white hunters of the border country.