own account with the neighboring Indians, to whom the land they were on apparently belonged.

The first need was even more pressing than the second. North Carolina was a turbulent and disorderly colony, 5 unable to enforce law and justice even in the long-settled districts; so that it was wholly out of the question to appeal to her for aid in governing a remote and outlying community. Moreover, about the time the Watauga commonwealth was founded the troubles in North Carolina 10 came to a head. Open war ensued between the adherents of the royal governor, Tryon, on the one hand and the Regulators, as the insurgents styled themselves, on the other, the struggle ending with the overthrow of the Regulators at the battle of the Alamance.

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As a consequence of these troubles many people from the back counties of North Carolina crossed the mountains and took up their abode among the Watauga pioneers. Among the first comers were many members of the class of desperate adventurers always to be found 20 hanging round the outskirts of frontier civilization. But the bulk of the settlers were men of sterling worth, fit to be the pioneer fathers of a mighty and beautiful state. They possessed the courage that enabled them to defy outside foes, together with the rough, practical common 25 sense that allowed them to establish a simple but effective form of government, so as to preserve order among themselves.

To succeed in the wilderness it was necessary to possess not only daring but also patience and the capacity to endure grinding toil. The pioneers were hunters and husbandmen. Each, by the aid of ax and brand, cleared his patch of corn land in the forest, close to some clear, swift- 5 flowing stream, and by his skill with the rifle won from canebrake and woodland the game on which his family lived until the first crop was grown.

A few of the more reckless lived entirely by themselves, but as a rule each knot of settlers was gathered together 10 into a little stockaded hamlet, called a fort or station. This system of defensive villages was distinctive of pioneer backwoods life and was unique of its kind; without it the settlement of the West and Southwest would have been indefinitely postponed. In no other way could the 15 settlers have combined for defense, while yet retaining their individual ownership of the lands. The Watauga forts or palisaded villages were of the usual kind, the cabins and blockhouses connected by a heavy, loopholed picket. They were admirably adapted for defense with 201 the rifle, and they offered a haven of refuge to the settlers in case of an Indian inroad. In time of peace the inhabitants moved out, to live in their isolated log cabins and till the stump-dotted clearings. Trails led through the dark forests from one station to another, 25 as well as to the settled districts beyond the mountains; and at long intervals men drove along them bands of

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pack horses, laden with the few indispensable necessaries the settlers could not procure by their own labor. The pack horse was the first, and for a long time the only, method of carrying on trade in the backwoods, and the 5 business of the packer was one of the leading frontier industries.

The pioneers worked hard and hunted hard and lived both plainly and roughly. Their cabins were roofed with clapboards or huge shingles, split from the log with maul 10 and wedge and held in place by heavy stones or by poles;

the floors were made of puncheons, hewn smooth on one surface; the chimney was outside the hut, made of rock when possible, otherwise of logs thickly plastered with clay; the unglazed window had a wooden shutter, and 15 the door was made of great clapboards. The men made their own harness, farming implements, and domestic utensils; and, as in every other community still living in the heroic age, the smith was a person of the utmost importance. There was but one thing that all could have in 20 any quantity, and that was land; each had all of this he wanted for the taking, or, if it was known to belong to the Indians, he got its use for a few trinkets or a flask of whisky. The corn shuckings, flax pullings, logrollings (when the felled timber was rolled off the clearings), house 25 raisings, and the like were scenes of boisterous and lighthearted merriment to which the whole neighborhood came, for it was accounted an insult if a man were not asked to

help on such occasions, and none but a base churl would refuse his assistance.

Such were the settlers of the Watauga, the founders of the commonwealth that grew into the state of Tennessee. They were the first Americans who, as a separate body, 5 moved into the wilderness to hew out dwellings for themselves and their children, trusting only to their own shrewd heads, stout hearts, and strong arms, unhelped and unhampered by the power nominally their sovereign. They built up a commonwealth which had many successors; they 10 showed that the frontiersmen could do their work unassisted; for they proved that they were made of stuff stern enough to hold its own against outside pressure of any sort. The Watauga settlers outlined in advance the nation's work. They tamed the rugged and shaggy 15 wilderness, they bid defiance to outside foes, and they successfully solved the difficult problem of self-government.

Abridged from The Winning of the West

Boon: Daniel Boon (or Boone) was a Pennsylvania hunter whose zest for the wild life of the wilderness led to the settlement of Kentucky. Watau'ga: a stream in eastern Tennessee which is a tributary of the Tennessee River. - Al'amance: a creek in North Carolina. The battle was fought in 1771. - brand: a blazing piece of wood. - canebrake: a thicket of canes or plants with long, smooth stems. stockaded protected by a stockade, or high wooden barrier. blockhouse: a house fitted to serve as a fort. maul: a heavy wooden hammer.

heavy slabs of wood, smoothed on one side.

puncheons: split logs or

THE SURPRISE OF KASKASKIA

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

NOTE. One of the chief of the backwoodsmen was George Rogers Clark, a bold and ambitious leader, who had long planned the conquest of the country beyond the Ohio. It was occupied by warlike Indians, ancient French hamlets, and forts garrisoned by the British king. While the 5 Revolution was in progress, Clark determined to capture these British posts and conquer the French settlements, thus winning the whole territory for the new federal republic. With the approval of Patrick Henry, who was at that time governor of Virginia, Clark raised a small number of troops, about one hundred and fifty in all, and began his march.

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On the evening of the Fourth of July, 1778, they reached the river Kaskaskia, within three miles of the town which lay on the farther bank. They kept in the shadow of the woods until it grew dusk, and then marched silently to a little farm a mile from the town. The fam15 ily were taken prisoners, and from them Clark learned that some days before, the townspeople had been alarmed at the rumor of a possible attack, but that their suspicions had been lulled and they were then off their guard.

Getting boats the American leader ferried his men 20 across the stream under cover of the darkness and in profound silence, the work occupying about two hours. He then approached Kaskaskia under cover of the night, dividing his force into two divisions, one being spread out to surround the town so that none might escape, 25 while he himself led the other up to the walls of the fort.