CHAPTER XII. ONE PERCUSSION CAP 166 How a bear disturbed Father Rapp's model communistic village at Harmony. CHAPTER XIII. THE VOYAGEUR 178 A type of the early inhabitants. CHAPTER XIV. THE BEAVERS' DAM 190 Creatures of the wild help to save a town. AFTERWORD 221 ILLUSTRATIONS "GOOD LUCK! GOOD LUCK!" SHOUTED DOBY. "I'VE FOUND THE THING I MOST NEED" _Frontispiece_ THE BIRD JUMPED AT THE BOY. THE BOY STABBED AT THE BIRD _Facing p._ 38 EACH SAVAGE GIBED AT THE BOY'S PAINTED TALISMAN, BUT EACH OBEYED ITS MESSAGE " 74 DOBY WHIPPED OUT HIS KNIFE AND CUT THE THONGS " 116 FOREWORD IN the very heart of our United States is a vast and wonderful valley. Through the primeval hardwood forests of its hillsides, long ago, ran the naked, rollicking boys of the Stone Age, choosing the best paths as they hurried out to play, each one with his pet wolf puppy. Afterward, in the rich alluvial soil of the bottom-lands, fur-clouted lads of the Mound-Builders laid out good trails whereon every one could drive tandem his team of captured fawns. Later still, Indian striplings found the streams that might best bear, with least portage, the birch-bark canoe in which, with his doeskin blanket aflutter and his trained hawk on prow, many a one has shot the rapids. Then came the white men. They discovered these routes and followed them. Over the waterways, in the native canoes which he borrowed, sailed the Jesuit missionary explorer with standard and altar; then the French trading "voyageur" with bundles of skins and bead trinkets. Through the old forest paths marched the scarlet-coated British soldier and the ragged Continental volunteer who defied him. By the trails advanced the best of all scouts, the backwoodsman. His suit of fringed buckskin, with his 'coonskin cap and his moccasins, made up the most artistic, the most serviceable, and the most characteristic garb the New World has yet evolved. His vigorous body, his keen intelligence, and his warm heart bespoke the true American--the father of a mighty race. Following fast upon the heels of these trooped the home-seekers, the builders of a nation. For picturesque effect and political significance, the groups who floated down the Ohio River in home-made flatboats, and the families who crossed overland through the romantic Cumberland Gap in their wagon-trains, have never been excelled.