Of the geographical precursors of that valley I have spoken. But there are
others who have enlarged the boundaries and increased the size of acres
discovered by the first precursors. Let me without fatiguing statistics
give intimation of what I mean in one or two illustrations of the
successors of the coureurs de bois, the runners before, the later prophets
of the valley.
Out of a trough up in the Alleghany Mountains--one of those troughs
occupied by the sinewy Scotch-Irish pioneers who first, after the French,
as you will recall, crept down into the great valley--there journeyed one
day, a century after Celoron, a young man on horseback. He rode as many
miles as La Salle went on foot in that memorable heart-breaking journey
from Fort Crevecoeur to Fort Frontenac. He rode through the territory
which La Salle had so appealingly described to Louis XIV, now yellow with
ripe wheat. Men and women, children and grandmothers, were toiling day and
night with scythes and sickles to harvest it by hand, but could not gather
it all, and tons were left to rot under the "hoofs of cattle.
Pages:
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491