their effect in nerving these men to the endurance
of their perilous situation, as in small parties, or even
singly, they sat down to spend days and months in
the wilderness, totally cut off from all communication
with their race. Such was the lot of Pinlay, Boone,
and others of the same stamp and mould, whose names
will be for ever identified with the discovery and
settlement of the West. From the pertinacity with
which these men would cling to their discovery, it
would almost seem as if their hearts misgave them,
but that the whole might prove a delusion, and
that if they returned over the mountains, they would
never be able to find that rich, and pleaaajit, and
fruitful land again.
