the shadows of those tremendous forest trees; dangers intensified the joys, and, as everywhere else, added a flavor to living, a romantic tinge to what otherwise might have been commonplace. There was no caste, no clique, no faction; even Virginian and Pennsylvanian eyed one another more considerately on the Ohio than elsewhere; true, the quarrel at last grew bitter, even here, but it was confined to the possession of Pittsburg and did not concern the valley as a whole. With the deepening of the struggle for the Ohio its first generation of _voyageurs_ became of great importance. Their knowledge of the river and the land through which it flowed was of moment to marching armies, scouts and spies, peace commissioners, military superintendents, commanders of forts, cohorts of surveyors, land companies, investors, promoters, and pioneers. With the passing of the fur trade, a score of remunerative openings was at the command of the rivermen who had learned well his lesson. Thus with the opening of the new era of the barge and keel-boat the old-time _voyageur_ could remain upon the scene, or, like Daniel Boone, paddle away to the West and in a new land live over again the days when the forests were fresh and green. With the filling of the Ohio Valley came the introduction of these heavy freight craft, the barge and flat-boat, and, almost immediately, the keel-boat, the first upstream craft. To row or steer a barge or flat or to pole a keel-boat was work no _voyageur_ of earlier times had undertaken. It was rougher work than had ever been demanded of men in the West and it soon developed rougher men than the West had ever seen. Social conditions, growing spasmodically complex in a new country, made them worse. Once free of savage red-men, the Ohio Valley became a famous retreat for criminals of every class from every state; horse thieves, gamblers, and men guilty of far worse crimes were comparatively safe on the Ohio by 1800; and, in the descending barge or flat, could pass on into a new career under new names in Kentucky, Ohio, or beyond. Added to this scum of the older communities must be counted the hundreds who had served in the western armies which were now disbanded, many of whom bred in roughest surroundings now sank quickly to their social level in the fast-filling West they had freed. This type of hardy but vicious manhood found hard work awaiting them on the rivers where millions of tons of freight were waiting to be moved. They laid down a heavy musket and picked up a heavier oar; but the two forms of occupation were not dissimilar, for both offered a life of alternate labor and rest. On these first freight craft in the West the work was severe in the extreme, but it was not continuous; it was often a desperate pull today and leisure tomorrow. A writer of a generation ago caught the exact spirit of this life at this transitional state: