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Show WESTERN WILDS, THE MEN WHO REDEEM THEM. CHAPTER I. THE HAWKEYES. THE rolling prairies of Iowa were taking on their richest summer hues when I crossed from Prairie du Chien to McGregor, the first of June, 1868, and entered upon a three hundred mile walk across the State. The " Land of the Sleepy," as the aboriginal name implies, was just then the land of men particularly wide awake to their own inter-ests. I was but one of a grand army ever pushing westward active, aggressive, and defiant of space and time. Iowa combined the advan-tages of both East and West, and men of all North- European races were crowding to possess it. There was the Yankee, moving on with that resistless energy which distinguishes the emigrant from our " Dorian Hive." More rarely ap-peared the " Buckeye " and " Hoosier ;" their route was a little farther south, for emigration pays some attention to isothermal lines, and as a rule older States settle the new States directly west of them. There was the blonde Swede, tall and sinewy, his blue eye lighting cheerfully at sight of such landed wealth, in a clime a little milder than his own. Dane and Norwegian were also hurrying into north- western Iowa and southern Dakota. All these Scandinavian races are rarely seen south of latitude 40, but fill whole townships in our new North- west. Dutch, Irish, Swiss, and North Germans contributed each a small quota. One might have fancied himself borne forward on the crest of that great Aryan wave which rolled westward and northward from Ba-bel's plains. Four years after I found many of these emigrants in Da-kota; already at home upon well- improved farms, and surrounded with most of the comforts of life. 2 < 17> |