The wild, dense forest, the gigantic mountains, the untrodden wilderness, sweeping beneath the sky with its varying swell, the unbroken waste and desert with the savage dwellers in it, whose crimson hands were against all civilization and gory with the uncounted murders of the white man, were now to furnish me with all the delight my nature could crave from a life of constant excitement. If I thought of my home and my friends, hundreds upon hundreds of miles away from me, I fear, at this time, it was with no inconsolable feelings of regret. In truth, I was about to become the veritable pioneer and protector of the scarcely-rooted civilization in which my lot had lately been cast. What chance was there I could over-much think of the past, in the absolute toil and the positive demand for vital activity of the present? I was now about twenty-four years of age. My frame always promising strength, had become robust and powerful. Nature had gifted me with a sufficiently good constitution, as well as some considerable amount of energy. In addition to this, I possessed self-confidence enough to render me equal to the position in which fortune and adventure had placed me. By the bye, it may be as well for me here to say a few words respecting Jack Bird, who was commonly called by his acquaintances "the" Captain. About fifty-five years of age, and rather above the medium height, he possessed a powerful frame. Of dark complexion, and with piercing hazel eyes; he was a Mississipian, or, as he was used to say, he "came from old Massisip." In a word, a native, as he himself told me, of Arkansas, he was a splendid specimen of the class of men raised between civilized life and the extreme frontier of that civilization. Thus he had been made a backwoodsman by nature and predisposition, as well as necessity. With an active and energetic mind, he had carved out for himself in this wild country, a comparative fortune. Had he been reared in New York State, he might have grown to the proportions of a Vanderbilt.