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The Indian simply followed the animals, and the trader followed the Indian, and the official "explorer" followed the trader, and the engineer followed the "explorer," and the railroad contractor followed the engineer. It was the buffalo, the deer, the bear, and the wolf who were our original transcontinental path-finders, or rather pathmakers.
Even if we allow to the forests Chateaubriand's color in summer and the clamor in times of terror color and clamor which only a keen eye and ear would have seen and heard we cannot longer think of them as pathless, if inhabited by those ancient pathmakers, the buffalo, deer, sheep.
This illustrates the interesting fact that, over all this continent, the Indians were the earliest pathmakers. Important railroads follow the lines of trails made by moccasined feet, and steamboats plough the waters of routes which the birch canoe skimmed for centuries.
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