settled, where
settled at all, it was still clothed in primeval verdure--here in the
endless reach of savannas, there in the depth of pathless woods, and far
away to the North and the West in those monotonous ocean-like levels of
land for which the speech of England has no name--the Prairies. Its
population was nomadic, not to say barbaric, consisting of tribes of
Indians whose hunting grounds from time immemorial the region was;
hunters and trappers, who had turned their backs upon civilization for
the free, wild life of nature; men of doubtful or dangerous antecedents,
who had found it convenient to leave their country for their country's
good; and scattered about hardy pioneer communities from Eastern States,
advancing waves of the great sea of emigration which is still drawing
the course of empire westward. Travelling in a country like this, and
among people like these, Mayne Reid passed five years of his early
manhood. He was at home wherever he went, and never more so than when
among the Indians of the Red River territory, with whom he spent several
months, learning their language, studying their customs, and enjoying
the wild and beautiful scenery of their camping grounds. Indian for the
time, he lived in their lodges, rode with them, hunted with them, and
night after night sat by their blazing camp-fires listening to the
warlike stories of the braves and the quaint legends of the medicine
men. There was that in the blood of Mayne Reid which fitted him to lead
this life at this time, and whether he knew it or not it educated his
genius as no other life could have done. It familiarized him with a
large extent of country in the South and West; it introduced him to men
and manners which existed nowhere else; and it revealed to him the
secrets of Indian life and character.

There was another side, however, to Mayne Reid than that we have touched
upon, and this, at the end of five years, drew him back to the average
life of his kind. We find him next in Philadelphia, where he began to
contribute stories and sketches of travel to the newspapers and
magazines. Philadelphia was then the most literate city in the United
States, the one in which a clever writer was at once encouraged and
rewarded. Frank and warm-hearted, he made many friends there among
journalists and authors. One of these friends was Edgar Allan Poe, whom
he often visited at his home in Spring Garden, and concerning whom years
after, when he was dead, he