Chapter I: Foreword

HIKING WESTWARD is really a chapter taken out of the lives of two wide-awake American boys who go West to make a home for their mother. Although ignorant of the conditions of frontier life, Phil and Ted Porter meet them manfully. They face their difficulties with a smile, work like Trojans on their quarter section and through the love which they bear their mother, as shown in their every act, they win the respect of the kind-hearted, but rough settlers: people who do things: to whom setbacks and difficulties are daily occurrences. Success crowned their efforts, developing a sturdy self-reliance and an ingenuity in surmounting the many obstacles which confronted them.

Originally this story appeared under the title of “The Young Homesteaders”, by J. W. Lincoln—my pen name, but the edition was quickly withdrawn and now, over my own name and with corrections and revisions, I desire to place it in the hands of all the boys I can as a true picture of early pioneer days.

Roger W. Conant.

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CONTENTS

I Solving a Problem
II Temptation
III Electing a Captain
IV A Pleasant Surprise
V Timely Assistance
VI Boarding the Admiral
VII Anxious Moments
VIII The Boys Prove Their Metal
IX A Series of Revelations
X The Unusual Postman
XI Up the Saint Mary’s River
XII Shooting the Rapids
XIII Through onto Superior
XIV A Night in the Fog
XV Entrained
XVI A Night Alarm
XVII Receiving Pointers
XVIII The Boys Find a Friend
XIX A Close Call
XX In the Lumber Camp
XXI More Good Luck
XXII On the Claim
XXIII “Bears!”
XXIV Outfitting
XXV A Day of Trials
XXVI An Echo from the Past
XXVII Building an Irrigation Plant
XXVIII A Terrible Experience
XXIX Ted Makes a Discovery
XXX Series of Unpleasant Surprises
XXXI The Fire Lookout
XXXII An Unexpected Arrival
XXXIII Fighting for Their Home
XXXIV The Girls Make Friends
XXXV At Work in Earnest
XXXVI Chester Brings News
XXXVII Word from Washington
XXXVIII The House-Raising
XXXIX A Fortunate Discovery

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Hiking Westward