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Between Yreka and the Klamath River a narrow, rapid stream, recalling some portions of the Housatonic, which we intersected about noon, and along which we rode for an hour we met only two or three silent horsemen and as many eremitic wood-choppers.
Puritans from New England; cavaliers from Virginia; Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania; mild-eyed trappers and bargemen from the French hamlets of Kaskaskia and Cahokia; wood-choppers; scouts; surveyors; swaggering adventurers; land-lawyers; colonial burgesses, all these mingled and jostled, plotted and bartered, in the shops, in the streets, under the trees.
The steamer gave him a parting salute from her whistle as she backed out into the river, Captain Howard and his friends on the boiler deck waved their hands to him, and Rodney was left alone with the wood-choppers.
The axes of the wood-choppers were next heard, coming out of the forest, cutting fuel for the approaching winter; and a half-finished ditch had its workmen also, who were soon busy casting up the soil, and fashioning their trench. In a word, all the suspended toil was renewed with perfect system and order.
The words brought all the wood-choppers to their feet and sent all except two of them Nels and the man who had taken his seat near the door out into the darkness. These remained behind in obedience to a sign from Jeff, and Rodney knew that they meant to keep an eye on him. "Who's out there?" he inquired. "Don't you recognize his voice?" asked Nels in reply.
In the Northern States these swarms very often perish before spring; but in such a country as Florida they seem to multiply, till bee-trees are very common. In the West, also, wild honey is often gathered in large quantities. I noticed, not long since, that some wood-choppers on the west slope of the Coast Range felled a tree that had several pailfuls in it.
And Josiah put a lot of wood-choppers in there to work; and they cut, and drawed the wood to Jonesville, and made money. Made more than enough the first six months to pay for the expenditure and outlay of money for the lot. He did well.
Ferris had stolen his chance; he was coming along with his rigging as fast as he could, with his quick French wood-choppers, and their sharp saws and stubborn wedges to cant the trunks; already he was not far from the farm.
Up to the close of the Revolutionary contest the settlers who were building homes and States beyond the Alleghanies formed a homogeneous backwoods population. The wood-choppers, game hunters, and Indian fighters, who dressed and lived alike, were the typical pioneers. They were a shifting people. In every settlement the tide ebbed and flowed.
It would carry him also quite beyond the clearing of the wood-choppers, and be effectually turning the whole of the enemy's position.
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