To the toils and discomforts incident to their journey were often added casualties and great personal risks. An unlucky step might wrench an ankle; the axe might glance from a twig and split a foot open; and a broken leg, or a severed artery, is a frightful thing where no surgeon can be had. Exposure to all the changes of the weather--sleeping upon the damp ground, frequently brought on fevers; and sickness, at all times a great calamity, was infinitely more so to the pioneer. It must have been appalling in the woods. Many a mother has carried her wailing, languishing child in her arms, to lessen the jolting of the wagon, without being able to render it the necessary assistance. Many a family has paused on the way to gather a leafy couch for a dying brother or sister. Many a parent has laid in the grave, in the lonely wilderness, the child they should meet no more till the morning of the resurrection. Many a heart at the West has yearned at the thought of the treasured one resting beneath the spreading tree. After-comers have stopped over the little mound, and pondered upon the rude memorial carved in the bark above it; and those who had sustained a similar loss have wrung their hands and wept over it, for their own wounds were opened afresh. Among the chapters of accident and casualty which make up the respective diaries of the families who left their eastern homes after the Revolution and joined the ranks of the Western immigrants there is none more interesting than that of Mrs. Jameson. She was the child of wealthy parents, and had been reared in luxury in the city of New York. Soon after peace was declared she was married to Edward Jameson, a brave soldier in the war, who had nothing but his stout arms and intrepid heart to battle with the difficulties of life. Her father, dying soon after, his estate was discovered to have been greatly lessened by the depreciation in value which the war had produced. Gathering together the remains of what was once a large fortune, the couple purchased the usual outfit of the emigrants of that period and set out to seek their fortunes in the West. All went well with them until they reached the Alleghany River, which they undertook to cross on a raft. It was the month of May; the river had been swollen by rains, and when they reached the middle of the stream, the part of the raft on which Mr. Jameson sat became detached, the logs separated, and he sank to rise no more. The other section of the raft, containing Mrs. Jameson, her babe of eight months, and a chest of clothing and household gear, floated down-stream at the mercy of the rapid current. [Illustration: PERILOUS CROSSING OF THE ALLEGHANY RIVER]