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I was alone that day, old Mrs Liston, Eve, and "Aunt Temple" having gone off in the waggon for a long drive to visit a relative with hunting proclivities, who had built himself a log-hut in a ravine of the neighbouring mountains, that he might be in closer proximity to the bears and deer.
The suddenness with which Winn started up caused the dog to spring back into the darkness, from the shelter of which he regarded his new acquaintance distrustfully. Just then Billy Brackett, to cheer the loneliness of his log-hut, began to chant the ballad of "The Baldheaded Man," and Bim, hearing his master's voice, darted off in that direction.
By following it he came once more to the deserted log-hut in the forest, but search through the little clearing as he might, he could not see that it went any farther. Taking his bearings, after deciding to open a trail of his own from there to the river, the boy attacked a thicket on the eastern side of the clearing with his jack-knife.
"Boone, agile as a deer, darted out at the door, and in a moment was in his bullet-proof log-hut, which to him was an impregnable citadel. Loop-holes guarded every approach. The Indians could not show themselves without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range.
Each perhaps carries out with him a box of stout clothes, some agricultural tools and important seeds, and either squats on a bit of wild land, or by a very easy payment buys possession of the Federal Government. This bit of land the settler counts his own. With the aid of friendly neighbours he builds the rude log-hut.
When they turned out of the street with its few dismal oil-lamps, their way led them among dirty tents and black pits, and they had to depend for light on the lantern they carried. They crossed a rickety little bridge over a flooded river; then climbed a slope, on which in her bunchy silk skirts Polly slipped and floundered, to stop before something that was half a tent and half a log-hut.
Next comes disease, either a sweeping pestilence that deals wholesale on its victims, or else a gradual sinking of mind and body; finally, the abode in the hospital, if any comrade is interested enough for the sufferer to bear him to it; else, the solitary log-hut and quicker death.
The only things pertaining to the former possessor of the log-hut were an old, rusty, battered tin pannikin, now, alas! unfit for holding water; a bit of a broken earthen whisky jar; a rusty nail, which Louis pounced upon, and pocketed, or rather pouched, for he had substituted a fine pouch of deer-skin for his worn-out pocket; and a fishing-line of good stout cord, which was wound on a splinter of red redar, and carefully stuck between one of the rafters and the roof of the shanty.
Sometimes he would find a little log-hut with a settler's family in it, and he says it was "a great treat" to come upon one of these lonely cabins and enjoy the privilege of a night's lodging. If the family were Methodists, there was sure to be preaching that night; and if they were strangers to that church, our preacher set to work at once to convert them.
I had annexed to the apartment reserved for myself in the log-hut a couple of spare rooms, in which I could accommodate passing strangers.
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