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Already in the newly opened European field, where the first stage of its transatlantic missionary enterprise is now unfolding, the success which the vanguard of its army of pioneers has already achieved in several leading capitals of that continent is truly heart-warming and evokes intense admiration.

Of course, as in every other settlement of inland America, the especial point to be noticed is the individual initiative of the different settlers. Neither the royal nor the provincial governments had any thing to do with the various colonies that were planted almost simultaneously on the soil of Kentucky. Each little band of pioneers had its own leaders, and was stirred by its own motives.

"Yours will be the more important occupation now, my dear," said the doctor's wife; "you'll be in the front ranks of the fighters." So the doctor went away and the two women made the sewing-machine hum, and cut and basted and threaded needles. Together they managed to put together all that was indispensable and to discard the frivolous, as became the wives of pioneers.

The Northerners, when they began to move westward, came in comparatively large numbers, bringing comparatively ordered habits and the full machinery of outward civilisation with them. Thus a great social change followed upon their arrival in the regions to which only scattered pioneers such as the Lincolns had previously penetrated.

Their construction was difficult in the extreme, since the pioneers had to work in braces because of the enormous force of gravity. Then, too, they had to be protected from the overwhelming pressure and poisonous qualities of the air, and insulated from a temperature far above the melting point of water.

His was not a chance "squatting" here or there on the prairie or among the trees. The necessities water and fuel led him as a rule to settle near a stream or river, and never far from timber. The pioneers settled in groups. One, two, three, or more families constituted the original nucleus of such groups. The groups were known as "communities" or "neighborhoods."

He snapped up a Federal squad, clothed a select part of his little band in their uniform, and sent the others back with the prisoners. Then he plunged boldly into the cloud, a squad of Federals, bummers, pioneers. Does the reader reflect upon the fine fibre of the material requisite for such an exploit?

The wilderness is merciless; the beaten men died, but the rest held on, indomitable; and now those who from the security of a railroad observation-car gaze upon orchard and oat-field, awful gorge and roaring torrent, can dimly realize what the making of that province cost the pioneers who marched into it with famine-worn faces and bleeding feet.

The years of 1853-4 were years of comparative peace, free from actual Indian wars, and afforded the pioneers an opportunity of improving their farms, building up more comfortable homes and surrounding their families with some comforts and conveniences of civilization. Yet even these years were not free from alarms and stampedes.

To do this, he followed Dancing up the track past a long construction train in which the men lived. The big box-cars contained sleeping-bunks, and those men who preferred more air and seclusion had swung sleeping-hammocks under the cars; others had spread their beds on top of the cars. Climbing a little embankment, Bucks watched the sturdy, broad-shouldered pioneers.