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They went straight into the thick timber-land, instead of going to the rich and waiting prairies, and they crowned this initial mistake by cutting down the splendid timber instead of letting it stand. Thus bird's-eye maple and other beautiful woods were used as fire-wood and in the construction of rude cabins, and the greatest asset of the pioneers was ignored.
Then all the curious, inhospitable folk of the timber-land came out upon their towers to denounce. I made my way over the rustling, brittle leaves, and soon found a trail that led up over high land. I followed it for a matter of some minutes, and came to the road, taking my left-hand way, as they told me. There was no traveller in sight.
So back again I went at all seasons of the year to encamp in that great timber-land that sweeps from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
He had grown up with the place; had run the lumber-mill and the first railroad that hauled the lumber from the mill down to tide-water; had become the owner of the store and the proprietor of some sixteen miles of timber-land along the river-front; had built the chief house of the village and given his children a capital education; and there he still dwelt, with his wife from Killarney, and with his tall sons and daughters about him, contented and happy, and not at all disposed to question the beneficent order of the universe.
A smile crept into the wrinkles about Jerrard's shrewd eyes. "Whittaker," said he, "there's a side to our railroad enterprise that neither you nor I appreciated at first. I've been getting some points from our counsel, who had a talk with Bevan. When we were up at the lake, you remember something that Rotre said about the timber-land owners not especially hankering for a railroad at the carry.
True, the surface only is scratched, and the soil is soon exhausted, but who cares for that when there is abundance of rich timber-land from which to clear new fields? and as to economizing labor, that is the last thing a planter cares about, for what are the negroes to do?
These "regulations," which were nothing more or less than an extra-legal license to land-grabbers, also granted surveys for desert lands and timber lands under the timber-land act. By the terms of this act, it will be recalled, those who entered and took title to desert and timber lands were not required to be actual settlers.
The preacher glanced up from his text and saw them, and his eye kindled. He gave out an old hymn and the congregation arose. The air was vibrant in the unctuous swell of sound. The spider webs hanging from the rafters trembled; the woods caught up the echo and bore it afar through the timber-land, and the distant leaves caught it as a whisper and hushed it.
Then, catching the market right "going and coming," he had bought a lot of young cattle from an overstocked ranch adjoining, and had made a second profitable sale a month later. Finally, to indicate that he was still in the game and playing it to win, consequently overlooking never a bet, he had cashed in pretty fortunately on a section of his timber-land.
He accompanied his restless, migratory father from one squatter home to another until he settled in Illinois, where the timber-land and prairie meet, near the Sangamon, and there built another cabin, made rails to fence ten acres of land which gave him the sobriquet the "rail-splitter" "broke" the ground, and raised a crop of corn on it the first year.
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