. Abraham Lincoln; a history . of the frontier,—fondness of adven-ture, recklessness of exposure or danger to life, aboastful assertion of personal right, privilege, orprowess, a daily and hourly familiarity with theuse of fire-arms. These again were heightened bytwo special influences — the presence of Indiantribes whose reservations lay just across theborder, and the advent and preparation of eachsummers emigration across the great plains. The Argonauts of 49 were not all gamblersand cut-throats of border song and story. Grener-ally, however, they were men of decision and will,all mere drift
. Abraham Lincoln; a history . of the frontier,—fondness of adven-ture, recklessness of exposure or danger to life, aboastful assertion of personal right, privilege, orprowess, a daily and hourly familiarity with theuse of fire-arms. These again were heightened bytwo special influences — the presence of Indiantribes whose reservations lay just across theborder, and the advent and preparation of eachsummers emigration across the great plains. The Argonauts of 49 were not all gamblersand cut-throats of border song and story. Grener-ally, however, they were men of decision and will,all mere drift-wood in the great current of gold-seekers being soon washed ashore and left they finished their last dinner at the PlantersHouse in St. Louis, the fledgelings of cities, thelawyers, doctors, merchants, and speculators, werein or of civilization. Perhaps they even resistedthe contamination of cards and drink, profanityand revolver salutations, while the gilded andtinseled Missouri River steamboat bore them for. DAVID R. ATCHISON. THE imm THE BORDER RUFFIANS 401 three days against its muddy current and boiling ch. to meet their company and their outfit. But once landed at Independence or Leaven-worth, they were of the frontier, of the wilderness,of the desert. Here they donned their garments ofred flannel and coarse cloth or buckskin, thrust thelegs of their trousers inside the tops of their heavyboots, and wore their bowie-knife or revolver intheir outside belt. From this departure all weresubject to the inexorable equality of the , sleeping, standing guard, tugging at thewheel or defending life and property,—there wasno rank between captain and cook, employer andemployed, savant and ignoramus, but the distribu-tion of duty and the assignment of and exposure, hunger and thirst, wind andstorm, danger in camp quarrel or Indian ambush,were the familiar and ordinary vicissitudes of athree months journey in a caravan of t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidabrahamlinco, bookyear1890
