When I was twelve years old my father died, and with my sister I went to live with my uncle, Thomas Dixon, who lived in Ray County, Missouri. In those days travel was difficult, and Missouri seemed a long way from our home in West Virginia. We had been with our uncle only a few months when my sister was stricken with typhoid fever, and died after an illness of about two weeks. This left me alone in the world. My uncle was kind and good to me, but I stayed with him only a year. I was a strong, rugged boy, unwilling to be dependent upon even a kinsman for my living, and with much resolution I decided to seek my own fortune. While at my uncle's home I had often met men who had been to the far west, and their marvelous tales of adventure fired my imagination, and filled me with eagerness to do what they had done. My dreams were filled with beautiful pictures of that dim region that lay toward the Rocky Mountains. In those days no traveler undertook this westward journey without a horse and a gun. I was penniless, and the purchase of these necessities seemed utterly beyond my resources. I had formed the acquaintance of a boy named Dan Keller, several years older than myself, and also without father or mother. Many times had we talked of the wild country where game abounded and Indian warriors rode as free as the wind. That we should go was as inevitable as the coming of the grass in spring or the falling of leaves in autumn. My uncle would have been greatly opposed to our enterprise had we told him of it, so I went away without telling him good bye. Having no horses, Dan and I started on foot, and in place of guns we had only courage and our chubby fists. In a sack on my back I carried my one extra shirt and my mother's photograph. The latter I treasured beyond all my other possessions. Making our way to the Missouri River we fell in with some wood choppers who were supplying with fuel the steamboats that in those days plied that river. The camps of these wood choppers were found at frequent intervals along the shore. The men were rough but generous and hospitable, and we were welcomed at their camps, many of which we reached at night-fall. We hunted and trapped up and down the river for several months, often staying in one camp for a couple of weeks. We were beginning to see the world and to find adventure. Around the campfires at night the wood choppers told of their exploits in the west--of how they had hunted the grizzly bear, the buffalo, the panther, the deer and the antelope, of how they had been caught in the howling blizzards, of their narrow escapes from drowning in swollen rivers, and of the battles they had fought with hostile Indians. Many times we sat and listened until midnight, the rush of the river sounding in our ears, and then after we had gone to bed we lay looking at the stars and wondering if it would ever be possible for us to lead such a delightful life.