And now the road had seen half a century of use. It was heavy with dust in summer from the almost continual trampling of the herds of horses and cattle, or droves of white, bleating sheep; and axle-deep with mud in spring and fall between frost and thaw; or rutted deep in winter where the wheels of the lumbering coaches and slow-moving freight wagons had cut. In Jacob Benson's day, the fine old taste for classic learning still survived; men having the time as well as the inclination for such things; and many a land owner in plotting his town site, gave it some name culled from Greek or Roman history. The Athens, Romes, Homers, and Spartas, dotted the map; but old Jacob Benson, with the egotism of rude and satisfied ignorance, when he lay out his town, and dug or burnt a few stumps from the centre of what he hoped would some day be a street, named it after himself; and so it has stood to this very day, growing steadily and with no apparent haste, but growing always. In the course of time the cabins, built by the early settlers, of unbarked logs with outside chimneys of mud and sticks, clapboard roofs, and puncheon floors, were replaced by more pretentious dwellings of hewn logs, with shingled roof, having sawed lumber for doors, window sash, and floors. These survived as stables, loom-houses, and shops of various sorts; for they in their turn gave way to substantial and often spacious homes of frame and brick. Indeed, as early as 1815, the town boasted a brick court-house which men came from afar to see. In their reckless pride the townspeople declared that it was one of the finest public buildings in the state. They had been wonderfully patient in industry, these pioneers. They had built schools, churches, roads and mills; they had driven out the Indians; and had waged incessant conflict against the wild life of their woods. They had fought the forest back from their doors foot by foot, and from clearing to clearing; until their rail and stump fences were everywhere in the landscape, climbing every hillside or reaching out across every stretch of fertile bottom land. Nor had their activities stopped here. They had played their part in the war of 1812, a part men still spoke of with pride; Colonel Landray recruiting a band of riflemen from among the sparse population. They had sent a company of fifty men to aid Texas in her struggle for independence, they had furnished and equipped two companies of volunteers for the war with Mexico, and all this while, year by year, beckoning to them in the West was the wilderness, with its compelling mystery that drew them on to its subduing; that made them leave their homes when they were built, their fields when they were cleared. CHAPTER THREE MR. Bartlett drew rein before the tavern and greeted Mr. Tucker with a bluff “Good-morning.”