Natural History Of Western Wild Animals And Guide For Hunters Trappers And Sportsmen PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt: ... VI. A TRAMP TO CALIFORNIA IN 1852. The desires of my boyhood were to be more than realized. My dreams of life in a wild country were to be no longer dreams. In the early spring of 1852, in company with two others, I started from my home in Southern Wisconsin, to conduct a company of men across the plains to California. For any number of persons to undertake an overland journey to California a score of years ago was to set at naught the pleadings of anxious friends, who were to be left behind, to face a long and exceedingly tedious journey, and one fraught in many cases with imminent peril. It was to travel, even in well equipped and thoroughly furnished companies, at such disadvantageous rates as would mock the fruitful imagination of even appreciative travelers, while crossing many of those same rivers, plains, mountains or mountain passes, but who view them at a rapid rate from the windows of some Pulman palace car, upon the Union Pacific Railroad. While now, children may be put in the care of some watchful conductor, or partial stranger, and be safely conveyed in the lapse of a few days to their places of destination upon the extreme western coast; while timid travelers and infirm people have but to be seated and wrap about them, as with a garment, a spirit of fearless quiet, and bidding good-night to an Atlantic home can so soon say good-morning to the Golden Gate: twenty years ago no man ever dreamed of going alone from shore, to shore, and companies of stout hearted, fearless men, many of whom were in those days, figuratively speaking, crazy to reach that land flowing with gold and money, not unfrequently lost members from their ranks, who were literally crazed by the exposures and anxieties of the journey. Then, as now, not all...