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Show 314 Early Western Travels [ VoLa6 anything of mystery hangs around his movements. Internal Improvement seems now to be the order of the day in Northern Illinois. This was the hobby of most of the stump- speakers; and the projected railway from Jacksonville to the river was under sober consideration. I became acquainted, while here, with Mr. G, a young gentleman engaged in laying off the route. It was late in the afternoon when I at length broke away from the hustings, and mounted my horse to pursue my journey to Springfield. The road strikes off from the public square, in a direct line through the prairie, at right angles with that by which I entered, and, like that, ornamented by fine farms. I had rode but a few miles from the village, and was leisurely pursuing my way across the dusty plain, when a quick tramping behind attracted my attention, and in a few moments a little, portly, red- faced man at my side, in linsey- woolsey and a broad- brimmed hat, saluted me frankly with the title of " friend," and forthwith announced himself a " Baptist [ 61] circuit- rider! " I became much interested in the worthy man before his path diverged from my own; and I flatter myself he reciprocated my regard, for he asked all manner of questions, and related all manner of anecdotes, questioned or not. Among other edifying matter, he gave a full- length biography of a ubtU-ards fever" from which he was just recovering; even from the premonitory symptoms thereof to the relapse and final convalescence. At nightfall I found myself alone in the heart of an extensive prairie; but the beautiful crescent had now begun to beam forth from the blue heavens; and the wild, fresh breeze of evening, playing among the silvered grass- tops, rendered the hour a delightful one to the traveller. " Spring Island Grove," a thick wood upon an eminence to the right, looked like a region of fairy- land as its dark foliage |