At first, he was _only_ a pioneer. He had few neighbors, he belonged to no community--his household was his country, his family were his only associates or companions. In the course of time others followed him--he could occasionally meet a white man on the prairies; if he wandered a few miles from home, he could see the smoke of another chimney in the distance. If he did not at once abandon his "clearing" and go further west, he became, in some sort, a member of society--was the fellow-citizen of his neighbors. The Indians became alarmed for their hunting grounds, or the nations went to war and drew them into the contest: the frontier became unsafe: the presence of danger drew the pioneers together: they adopted a system of defence, and the ranger was the offspring and representative of a new order of things. Rough and almost savage as he sometimes was, he was still the index to a great improvement. Rude as the system was, it gave shape and order to what had before been mere chaos. The ranger marks a new era, then; his existence is another chapter in the history of the west. Previous to his time, each pioneer depended only on himself for defence--his sole protection, against the wild beast and the savage, was his rifle--self-dependence was his peculiar characteristic. The idea of a fighting establishment--the germ of standing armies--had never occurred to him: even the rudest form of civil government was strange to him--taxes, salaries, assessments, were all "unknown quantities." But, gradually, all this changed; and with his circumstances, his character was also modified. He lost a little of his sturdy independence, his jealousy of neighborhood was softened--his solitary habits became more social--he acknowledged the necessity for concert of action--he merged a part of his individuality into the community, and--became a ranger. In this capacity, his character was but little different to what it had been before the change; and, though that change was a great improvement, considered with reference to society, it may safely be doubted whether it made the individual more respectable. He was a better _citizen_, because he now contributed to the common defence: but he was not a better _man_, because new associations brought novel temptations, and mingling with other men wore away the simplicity, which was the foundation of his manliness. Before assuming his new character, moreover, he never wielded a weapon except in his own defence--or, at most, in avenging his own wrongs. The idea of justice--claiming reparation for an injury, which he alone could estimate, because by him alone it was sustained--protected his moral sense. But, when he assumed the vindication of his neighbor's rights, and the reparation of his wrongs--however kind it may have been to do so--he was sustained only by the spirit of hatred to the savage, could feel no such justification as the consciousness of injury.