Such Logs As Have Escaped In The Manner Above Described Are Recognized On Their Passage Down The River By Their Marks, And Are Made Up Separately, The Original Owners Receiving The Value - Or Not Receiving It As The Case May Be.

"There is quite a trade going on with the loose lumber," my informant told me.

And from his tone I was led to suppose that he regarded the trade as sufficiently lucrative, if not peculiarly honest.

There is very much in the mode of life adopted by the settlers in these regions which creates admiration. The people are all intelligent. They are energetic and speculative, conceiving grand ideas, and carrying them out almost with the rapidity of magic. A suspension bridge half a mile long is erected, while in England we should be fastening together a few planks for a foot passage. Progress, mental as well as material, is the demand of the people generally. Everybody understands everything, and everybody intends sooner or later to do everything. All this is very grand; but then there is a terrible drawback. One hears on every side of intelligence, but one hears also on every side of dishonesty. Talk to whom you will, of whom you will, and you will hear some tale of successful or unsuccessful swindling. It seems to be the recognized rule of commerce in the far West that men shall go into the world's markets prepared to cheat and to be cheated. It may be said that as long as this is acknowledged and understood on all sides, no harm will be done. It is equally fair for all. When I was a child there used to be certain games at which it was agreed in beginning either that there should be cheating or that there should not. It may be said that out there in the Western States, men agree to play the cheating game; and that the cheating game has more of interest in it than the other. Unfortunately, however, they who agree to play this game on a large scale do not keep outsiders altogether out of the playground. Indeed, outsiders become very welcome to them; and then it is not pleasant to hear the tone in which such outsiders speak of the peculiarities of the sport to which they have been introduced. When a beginner in trade finds himself furnished with a barrel of wooden nutmegs, the joke is not so good to him as to the experienced merchant who supplies him. This dealing in wooden nutmegs, this selling of things which do not exist, and buying of goods for which no price is ever to be given, is an institution which is much honored in the West. We call it swindling - and so do they. But it seemed to me that in the Western States the word hardly seemed to leave the same impress on the mind that it does elsewhere.

On our return down the river we passed La Crosse, at which we had embarked, and went down as far as Dubuque in Iowa.

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