The temporary shanty had given place to a comfortable log cabin; and although the chimney was built of small sticks placed one on the other, and filled in between with clay, occupying almost one whole end of the cabin, it showed that the inward man was duly attended to; and the savory fumes of venison, of the prairie hen and other good things went far to prove that even backwoods life was not without its comforts.

As with most frontier levies, the officers were in large proportion; for, owing to the system of armed settlement and half-military organization, each wooden fort, each little group of hunters or hard-fighting backwoods farmers, was forced to have its own captain, lieutenant, ensign, and sergeant.

Just before starting he received a letter from the Earl advising, but not commanding, a change in their plans; to this he refused to accede, and was rather displeased at the proposal, attributing it to the influence of Conolly, whom the backwoods leaders were growing to distrust.

The youth referred to was very unlike, in many respects, to what we are accustomed to suppose a backwoods hunter should be.

Towards the close of his life old Mansker, like many another fearless and ignorant backwoods fighter, became so much impressed by the fiery earnestness and zeal of the Methodists that he joined himself to them, and became a strong and helpful prop of the community whose first foundations he had helped to lay.

Lewis' troops formed a typical backwoods army, both officers and soldiers.

A backwoods levy was formidable because of the high average courage and prowess of the individuals composing it; it was on its own ground much more effective than a like force of regular soldiers, but of course it could not be trusted on a long campaign.

His remaining absolutely alone in the wilderness for such a length of time is often spoken of with wonder; but here again Boon stands merely as the backwoods type, not as an exception.

Parties of backwoods riflemen, embodied as militia, likewise patrolled the woods, always keeping their scouts and spies well spread out, and exercising the greatest care to avoid being surprised.

Having decided on visiting New Harmony, in Indiana, where our friend B had been for some time enjoying the delights of sylvan life, and the refinements of backwoods-society, T and I purchased a horse, and Dearborne, a species of light waggon used in this country for travelling.

Robertson was well treated by the few settlers, and stayed long enough to raise a crop of corn, the stand-by of the backwoods pioneer; like every other hunter, explorer, Indian fighter, and wilderness wanderer, he lived on the game he shot, and the small quantity of maize he was able to carry with him.

A backwoods princes.

From one or two other captured tories, and from a staunch whig friend, they learned the exact disposition of the British and loyalist force, and were told that their noted leader wore a light, parti-colored hunting-shirt; and he was forthwith doomed to be a special target for the backwoods rifles.

There were very few books in the cabins of that backwoods settlement.

They remarked that the stores seemed to disappear in a way truly marvellous, leaving the backwoods soldiers who were to have benefited by them "as ragged as ever."

1. Georgia was then too weak and small to contribute much to the backwoods stock; her frontier was still in the low country.

XIX After the manner of backwoods fathers Jeffery Neilson had offered no objections to his daughter's all-day excursion with Ben.

The backwoods folk, the stark hunters and tree-fellers, and the war-worn regulars who fought beside them in the forest, pushed ever westward the frontier of the Republic.

The settlements were quite isolated, the communications very poor, and the social tone mostly that of the backwoods frontier.

There were many strangers passing through; and the better class of these were welcome at the rambling log-houses of the neighboring backwoods gentry, who often themselves rode into the taverns to learn from the travellers what was happening in the great world beyond the mountains.

But of course there were lawless characters on both sides; in certain localities where the crop of jealousies, always a rank backwoods growth, had been unusually large, and had therefore produced long-standing and bitter feuds, the rival families espoused opposite sides from sheer vindictive hatred of one another.

" These fights were among the numerous backwoods habits that showed Scotch rather than English ancestry.

I could think of nothing but her all the time,of her and the wild life of boats and backwoods harbors.

The old backwoods hero led a strange life: varying his long wanderings and explorations, his endless campaigns against savage men and savage beasts, by serving as road-maker, town-builder, and commonwealth-founder, sometimes organizing the frontiersmen for foreign war, and again doing his share in devising the laws under which they were to live and prosper.

At the Chickasaw Bluffs, and at Natchez, there was always danger of a clash; for at these places the Spanish soldiers were in direct contact with the foremost of the restless backwoods host, and with the Indians who were most friendly or hostile to them.