seman spurred
eastward along a black loamy wagon road, trotting through groves and
half-cleared fields until he passed a small hamlet bearing the great
name Columbia. Beyond this cluster of habitations lay Turkey Bottom,
so named on account of the wild flocks which made it their resort.
Burr selected the most distinctly marked of the several discernible
trails and traces in the mazy wilderness before him. Uncertain wheel
tracks indicated that the backwoods farmers, whose cabins were never
less than a mile apart, took various routes, according to their fancy
or the exigencies of the season. At one place a tree, recently blown
down, lay across the bridle-path, and, while guiding his horse around
this obstacle the rider saw a brown bear lurch off, swaying its head
in sulky humor.

The grandeur of the primeval solitude impressed Burr more profoundly
than he had imagined possible. The solemn majesty of the brotherhood
of lofty trees around and above him inspired awe. A sense of
bewilderment stole upon him. "Am I lost in the woods?" he wondered,
looking around for signs of human life. So strange did everything
appear that he was in doubt whether the log house not a hundred feet
ahead of him was an actual structure. The house was real, and in the
dooryard he saw a human being busy about some task. He rode up and
asked the way to Senator Smith's.

"Smith? You mean Elder Smith?" gossipped a woman, pausing from her
soap-making, near an ash-hopper. "Some do call him Senator, and some
call him Preacher, but most call him Elder Smith or else plain John."

"Does he preach?"

"Yes; some Sundays; generally he only exhorts. Turn to your right
after passing that wild-cherry, and you will see the Miami; follow
along up stream, and you can't miss sight of the mill and the
still-house. They belong to him, and so does the big store at
Columbia. John Smith is the richest man in these parts, but he isn't
proud and stuck up. When you come to the mill they'll show the way to
the house. A mighty fine house it is."

Burr thanked the woman and spurred on. "Smith is worth the trouble of
coming out for to see. No broken reed, but a pillar of state and
church is this same senator, elder, farmer, merchant, miller and
distiller." Thus meditating, the fisher of men followed the road by
the cherry tree and along the river, and soon reached Smith's lonely
dwelling, a new farmhouse, constructed of hewn logs and having a huge
stone chimney. Dismountin