, which held me
down for several weeks, but nursed by a tender and loving mother with
untiring care, I recovered, quite slowly, but surely. I felt that I had
been close to death, and that this country was not to be compared to
Wisconsin with its clear and bubbling springs of health-giving water.
Feeling thus, I determined to go back there again.

CHAPTER VI.

With the idea of returning to Wisconsin I made plans for my movements. I
purchased a good outfit of steel traps of several kinds and sizes,
thirty or forty in all, made me a pine chest, with a false bottom to
separate the traps from my clothing when it was packed in traveling
order, the clothes at the top. My former experience had taught me not to
expect to get work there during winter, but I was pretty sure something
could be earned by trapping and hunting at this season, and in summer I
was pretty sure of something to do. I had about forty dollars to travel
on this time, and quite a stock of experience. The second parting from
home was not so hard as the first one. I went to Huron, took the steamer
to Chicago, then a small, cheaply built town, with rough sidewalks and
terribly muddy streets, and the people seemed pretty rough, for sailors
and lake captains were numerous, and knock downs quite frequent. The
country for a long way west of town seemed a low, wet marsh or prairie.

Finding a man going west with a wagon and two horses without a load, I
hired him to take me and my baggage to my friend Nelson Cornish, at
Round Prairie. They were glad to see me, and as I had not yet got strong
from my fever, they persuaded me to stay a while with them and take some
medicine, for he was a sort of a doctor. I think he must have given me a
dose of calomel, for I had a terribly sore mouth and could not eat any
for two or three weeks. As soon as I was able to travel I had myself and
chest taken to the stage station on the line for the lake to Mineral
Point. I think this place was called Geneva. On the stage I got along
pretty fast, and part of the time on a new road. The first place of note
was Madison the capital of the territory, situated on a block of land
nearly surrounded by four lakes, all plainly seen from the big house.
Further on at the Blue Mounds I left the stage, putting my chest in the
landlord's keeping till I should come or send for it.

I walked about ten miles to the house of a friend named A. Bennett, who
was a hunter and lived on the bank of the