File:Stories of the West (1914) (14777323415).jpg

Identifier: storiesofwest00roos (find matches)
Title: Stories of the West
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
Subjects: Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) Mississippi River Valley -- History
Publisher: New York, The Century Co.
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
400 acres, but sometimesmore. Tracts of low, sw^ampy grounds, pos-sibly some miles from the cabin, were clearedfor meadows, the fodder being stacked, andhauled home in winter. Each backwoodsman was not only a smallfarmer but also a hunter; for his wife and chil-dren depended for their meat upon the venisonand bears flesh procured by his rifle. The peo-ple were restless and always on the move. Afterbeing a little while in a place, some of the menwould settle down permanently, while otherswould again drift ofl, farming and hunting al-ternately to support their families. The back-woodsmans dress was in great part borrowedfrom his Indian foes. He wore a fur cap orfelt hat, moccasins, and either loose, thin trous-ers, or else simply leggings of buckskin or elk-hide, and the Indian breech-clout. He was al-ways clad in the fringed hunting-shirt, of home-spun or buckskin, the most picturesque and dis-tinctively national dress ever worn in America.It was a loose smock or tunic, reaching nearly
Text Appearing After Image:
** The backwoodsmans dress was borrowed from his Indian foes. THE BACKWOODSMEN 31 to the knees, and held in at the waist by a broadbelt, from which hung the tomahawk and scalp-ing-knife. His weapon was the long, small-bore, flint-lock rifle, clumsy, and ill-balanced, butexceedingly accurate. It was very heavy, andwhen upright, reached to the chin of a tall man;for the barrel of thick, soft iron, was four feetin length, while the stock was short, and the buttscooped out. Sometimes it was plain, some-times ornamented. It was generally bored out—or, as the expression then was, sawed out—to carry a ball of seventy, more rarely of thirtyor forty, to the pound; and was usually of back-woods manufacture. The marksman almost al-ways fired from a rest, and rarely at a very longrange; and the shooting was marvelously accu-rate. In the backwoods there was very little money;barter was the common form of exchange, andpeltries were often used as a circulating medium,a beaver, otter, fisher, dre

Note About Images