CHAPTER IV.

THE SETTLEMENT.

A night in a shanty--The watchman's horn--The woodsman's hut--Death in the woods--The forest burial-place--A clearing on the Mississippi--A desolate scene--The "river" and the "town"--The floods of the Mississippi--A journey in the woods--Unpleasant forebodings--A town in the backwoods--A "camp out"--The "dead clearing"--The "lot" identified--The disappointment--Forest lodgings--Use of the axe--Deer-stalking--Perils of hunting in the backwoods--Progress of settlement--A plot and a counter-plot 131-174