Behind the backwoodsman, like the vanguard of an army taking the field, came the emigrant. The tread of his oxen, and print of his wagon-wheels, followed close in the blazed footpath of the departing pioneer. On foot he trudged at the head of his worldly possessions, as light of heart as the birds singing in the forest around him. In the wagon his household utensils would be stowed away, with wife and little ones, while his bronzed and barefooted boys, on foot and in homespun, drove the cows and hogs along the road behind it. At nightfall the wagon would be drawn up by the side of some limpid brook, the animals turned loose to crop the tender grass, while with an armful of fagots, gathered close at hand, the goodwife was soon busy cooking a frugal supper of bacon and potatoes, over the embers of their camp-fire. In this way the emigrant sometimes travelled week after week, and month after month, before finding a place of abode to suit him. This man had come to stay. When he had found a situation to his mind, he set about felling trees for his cabin. On the Missouri, where the first settlers chiefly came from Tennessee and Kentucky, this dwelling was usually two houses, built a little apart from each other, each containing but one room, and joined together only by the roof, so leaving an opening in the centre, where the family usually sat in the heat of the day. The chimneys were built of sticks, plastered with clay, and stood at the outside of the building, as the fashion is in the Southern States. There was little difference between the dwellings of rich and poor. In these humble abodes the first generation grew up to man's estate to find themselves to-day the founders of an empire. Unlike the backwoodsman, the settler had come to better his condition,—to grow up with the country, not abandon it with the first token of progress. Here he lived content. He broke up his forty acres of prairie land, fenced and planted it, and from its fertility soon reaped an abundant harvest of corn and potatoes, which with his swine and poultry, furnished more than food enough for his wants. Though the comforts of life were scarcely attainable in a wilderness, he had the necessaries, and could say, with our gracious poet, to the dweller in cities,— "How canst thou walk in these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies? How canst thou breathe in this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?" LONG EXPLORES THE PLATTE VALLEY. From the summit of Pike's Peak, Pike, the explorer, had looked down upon regions watered by four great rivers,—the Platte,[1] Arkansas, Rio Grande and Colorado. Into those dark gorges he had recklessly plunged. But he had scarcely done more than confirm the position of the great landmark, which nature has placed at the head of these great rivers.