It was not in Tom's nature to really move so promptly, and some days went by before the departure took place.

Transportation of some sort was a necessity, and horses were of small price in Kentucky in those days, except for the higher grades. Somehow or other, and by whatever help, Tom managed to obtain the services of two, such as they were. They were at all events good enough to carry what property he now had remaining, and there was little need of any wagon to roll behind them. That, too, was just as well, considering the nature of the roads to be traveled and the seasoned toughness of the bare feet of Tom Lincoln and his sad-faced wife, and of their boy and girl. There was no thought of tempting again the perils of Rolling Fork and Salt River and the Ohio on any kind of boat or float. Tom had had all the water he wanted.

Over in the graveyard, near Hodgensville, there was a very small green hillock, to which Mrs. Lincoln paid a visit, taking Abe with her, during those days of waiting. All she said to him about it was that if the little boy lying there had lived, he and Sally would now have a brother to travel to Indiana with them.

The day for departure came at last, and the route to be traveled had been determined beforehand. Towns and villages were scarce enough in all that region, and the few wayside taverns were on the lines of the more frequented highways. Little, however, did Tom Lincoln or his wife care for that, and the children did not know enough to give such things a thought. The whole forest, from Knob Creek to the Ohio, and as far beyond that river as any one might choose to go, was one grand hotel, open by night and day, and wherein there was no danger of being elbowed by other guests. Whenever a day's journey should be completed it would only be necessary to unpack the tired horses and turn them loose to pick their own supper. A fire could be kindled with flint and steel, and Mrs. Lincoln and Sally could fry a little bacon or cook such game as Tom's rifle might provide. They were almost sure to fall in with eatable wild creatures in the course of each day's march.

The burdens of the horses were not so heavy that they could not now and then take on also a human weight, and there was no special demand for haste.

It would be a mistake to describe the Lincoln family as undergoing hardships or privations in such a journey as they were now making. It was more like a prolonged "picnic" than anything else. At night, a bed of boughs with a blanket thrown over them was as soft and comfortable a resting-place as they had ever known. There was plenty to eat and drink; the autumn weather was fine; there was no shadow of peril; and as for any other matter, it was as Nancy had said, and any kind of change offered a reasonable hope of bettering their condition. So they went on through the woods and opens until they came out in sight of the Ohio River.

"Yonder's Thompson's Ferry," exclaimed Tom. "I knowed we was on the right track. We'll git across afore sundown. I left all the truck I didn't sell right over thar, with a feller named Posey. Now, Nancy, hurrah for Injianny! What does it look like to ye?"

"Most like any other piece of woods ever I seen."

So it did; and so did all the country north, and the country west of it, to the great prairies; and so did the Northwest, all the vast region which has since been carved into States and occupied by so many millions of happy and unhappy human beings.

A mere piece of woods, to look at; but in among the trees and thickets, between the Ohio River and the lakes and the British boundary-line, there were worse than wild beasts for a settler to contend with. These, too, were there in great abundance: bufalo, elk, deer, panthers, bears, catamounts, wild turkeys, small animals innumerable; these might even be regarded as a resource and a perpetual harvest. There, however, wandering in hunting and war parties or gathered in their villages, were the Sioux, Sacs, Foxes, Pawnees, and a score of other terrible tribes. Among the many chiefs and leaders of these was the mighty Black

hawk, even then a middle-aged warrior of high renown, and little Abe was to know many valuable things hereafter with the help of that particular Indian. He was, in a manner, to go to a school of his keeping, and learn in it great practical lessons for the benefit of his country.

Abe knew nothing of Blackhawk then, however, and his deepest interest for the moment was centred upon the flat-bottomed ferry-boat which was to convey them across the swift and muddy water of the Ohio. It bore a remarkable likeness to the hapless craft his father had launched at the mouth of Knob Creek. The passage was made in safety, nevertheless, and so was the rest of the march to the Posey homestead; and here the Lincoln family passed their first night in the Territory of Indiana.

The next morning a lumber-wagon was obtained, and laden with the packs from the two horses and the poor relics of the cargo of Tom's flatboat. To these were added a few sacks of corn, and then all would have been very well if there had been any road before them by which to travel.

"I've been thar," said Tom. "I kin find the spot, and the trail's been blazed pretty much all the way."

True enough; but when he made his choice of a location he had been unincumbered, except by the rifle on his shoulder and the axe with which he “blazed" the trees to mark his path. Now he had a team and a loaded wagon behind him, and these required a wider path than that by which a hunter's feet might pass. There was no help for it, and a road had to be cut by good hard ax-work wherever the trees stood too closely together for the wagon to squeeze between. The distance was but sixteen miles in a straight line, but it was much more by the winding road Tom Lincoln made. By the time he reached the land he was to settle on, he may be said to have fairly earned it. He did reach it; and the autumn of Abraham Lincoln's seventh year found him a very new settler in one of the very newest of all new countries.

CHAPTER III.

CHILD-LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS.

Pole shelter-Log Cabin and Clearing-Pestilence and Suffering-A Forest Funeral-1818.

A GRASSY hillock in the middle of a primeval forest is a very pretty thing to look upon. It will serve well, too, as a place for a temporary camp, in the perfect weather of an American autumn. Storms are sure to come, however, and storms bring rain, and the winter follows the autumn.

"Nancy," said Tom, "we can't stop to put up a house jest now; thar ain't time. We'll hev to start with a pole-shelter." "That'll do first rate; but I do wish we was nigher to a spring. That thar water-hole looks as if it mought go clean dry in summer," remarked his wife.

"Reckon not.

Leastwise it'll do till summer comes. We don't call for much water, no how."

There was some truth in that; but in after-time Tom was to spend many a weary day's work sinking unproductive holes in that neighborhood in a vain search for a well. He had done better if he had camped nearer a spring in the first place.

As he said, the building of a log-house was no small affair, while a large-sized "hunter's camp" could be put up in a hurry. Four fork-tipped uprights at the corners, those in the rear a little the longer, with strong "poles," or trunks of young trees, laid upon them, answered for the frame. Against these an abundance of other "poles" could be leaned and fastened, and the roof could be put on in corresponding style, with slabs of bark to shed the rain until shingles could be cut. For housekeeping purposes a fireplace and chimney of tempered