978

INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES.

map will at once convey an idea of the relative positions of the seats of justice of the different counties, as they were at that time, separated from each other by extensive tracts of uninhabited wilderness, stretching from each other a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles, without roads, bridges, or ferries. According to our present views of communication, it would be reasonable to suppose that the legal business of each county was done exclusively by those professional men residing at its seat of justice. That, however, was not the case. The judges, as well as the lawyers, and frequently their clients and witnesses, had to travel from the most extreme settlements of the Territory to where the court trying their cases was held.

The journeys of the court and bar to those remote places, through a country in its primitive state, were unavoidably attended with fatigue and exposure. They generally traveled in larger or smaller companies, and with pack-horses to transport such necessaries as their own horses could not conveniently carry, because no dependence could be placed on obtaining supplies on the route; although they frequently passed through Indian camps and villages, it was not safe to rely on them for assistance. Occasionally small quantities of corn could be purchased for horse-feed, but even that relief was precarious and could not be relied on. The routes were necessarily circuitous, and their progress slow. They were often, from one county to the other, from six to ten days in the wilderness, and at all seasons of the year were compelled to swim every water-course in their way which was too deep to be forded. That fact made it common, when purchasing a horse, to ask if he was a good swimmer, which was considered the most valuable quality of a saddle-horse.

Other fatigues and troubles were connected with these excursions during the early days of the settlement of the country. Although they were connected with privations and exposure, and often with great personal danger, yet they were not destitute of interest or amusement.   The exploration of the rich,