With Axe and Rifle

With Axe and Rifle, by W.H.G.
Kingston

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Title: With Axe and Rifle
Author: W.H.G. Kingston
Illustrator: H. Meyer
Release Date: May 15, 2007 [EBook #21449]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH AXE
AND RIFLE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

With Axe and Rifle; or The Western Pioneers, by W.H.G. Kingston.
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With great skill and sincerity Kingston depicts many of the struggles
and efforts that the would-be settlers in the West had to make. Constant
harrying by Red Indians, the weather, nasty neighbours, illness, all
made life difficult, indeed almost impossible.
The book is told through the eyes of a boy, as he grows to adulthood.
His family, also Mr Tidey, who acted as family tutor, or Dominie, and
Dio, a runaway slave to whom they give a home, form the principal
actors in this tale, but there are many others, such as the wicked
Bracher, and a mysterious hunter who appears several times in the
book in the guise of a rescuer.
Well into the last chapter we are presented with all sorts of dreadful
happenings, which the hero feels to be like the imagined happenings of
a bad dream. But suddenly it all sorts out and we have an unexpectedly
happy conclusion to the tale.
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WITH AXE AND RIFLE; OR THE WESTERN PIONEERS, BY W.H.G.
KINGSTON.
CHAPTER ONE.
CAPTAIN LORAINE'S FARM IN THE FAR WEST--HOT-HEADED
YOUNG MEN--OUR FAMILY--UNCLE DENIS TAKEN SICK--WE
SET OUT TO VISIT HIM--THE CORDUROY ROAD--A WAYSIDE
HOTEL--ROUGH COMPANY--APPEARANCE OF THE
COUNTRY-- CROSSING THE FORD AT GREEN
RIVER--NEARLY LOST--A BRAVE NEGRO--GRATITUDE OF
MY PARENTS--AT MR. SILAS BRACHER'S
PLANTATION--DIOGENES--MAMMY COE-- THE
SLAVE-OWNER--MY FATHER ENDEAVOURS TO PURCHASE
THE NEGRO--SLAVERY-- UNEXPECTED RECOVERY OF DR.
O'DOWD'S PATIENT--A SPORTSMAN'S AMBITION--

TRAPPING--A RICH PRIZE--SOMETHING ABOUT
TURKEYS--THE WONDERFUL CAVE OF KENTUCKY--OUR
RETURN TO ILLINOIS.
Some time after the termination of the long war which England had
waged in the cause of liberty when well-nigh all the world was up in
arms against her, my father, Captain Patrick Loraine, having served for
many years as a subaltern, believing that he should no longer find
employment for his sword, sold out of the army, and with the proceeds
of his commission in his pocket, quitting the old country, came to the
United States in the hopes of making his fortune more rapidly than he
could expect to do at home.
Finding that as a British officer he was looked upon with distrust in the
Eastern States, he made his way westward until he finally located
himself in Illinois on a fertile spot, sheltered on the north by a wide
extent of forest, and overlooking that part of the river Ohio which
separates the state from Kentucky. I remember even now the
appearance of the country. On the eastern side was a range of hills of
slight elevation, on one of which our house stood, while westward
stretched away as far as the eye could reach, a vast plain, with the
mighty Mississippi beyond. The scenery could boast of no great beauty
except such as lofty trees, the prairie, with its varied tints of green and
brown, yellow cornfields, rich meadows in the valleys, and the shining
river in the distance, canopied by the blue vault of heaven, could give it.
Still, it was my home, and as such I should have loved it, had it
possessed even less pretensions to beauty.
So well satisfied was my father with the country that he returned to
Ireland to bring back a young lady who had promised to become his
wife. Two or three years afterwards I was born, and was succeeded by
my brother Dan, and finally by my dear little sister Kathleen. My
mother, whose maiden name was O'Dwyer, was, I should have said,
accompanied by her two brothers, Michael and Denis, who came out
with the intention of assisting my father, and ultimately settling near
him, but they were hot-headed young men, and before even they
reached the farm they had a quarrel which resulted in their separation.

Denis finally settled in Kentucky, while Michael, with a rifle on his
shoulder and axe in his belt, saying that he should turn trapper, pushed
away further west, and from that day to the time I am about to describe
we had received no tidings from him. Uncle Denis became a successful
settler. He was soon reconciled to my father, and occasionally paid us a
visit, but preferred