I was now ready to go west, and coming across a pet deer which I had tamed, I knew if I left it it would wander away with the first wild ones that came along, and so I killed it and made my friends a present of some venison.  I chose still a new route this time, that I could see all that was possible of this big territory when I could do it so easily.  I was always a great admirer of Nature and things which remained as they were created, and to the extent of my observation, I thought this the most beautiful and perfect country I had seen between Vermont and the Mississippi River.  The country was nearly level, the land rich, the prairies small with oak openings surrounding them, very little marsh land and streams of clear water.  Rock River was the largest of these, running south.  Next west was Sugar River, then the Picatonica.  Through the mining region the country was rolling and abundantly watered with babbling brooks and health-giving springs.

In point of health it seemed to me to be far better than Michigan.  In Mr. Henry’s letter to me he had said that he had taken a timber claim in “Kentuck Grove,” and had all the four-foot wood engaged to cut at thirty-seven cents a cord.  He said we could board ourselves and save a little money and that in the spring he would go back to Michigan with me.  This had decided me to go back to Mineral Point.  I stopped a week or two with a man named Webb, hunting with him, and sold game enough to bring me in some six or seven dollars, and then resumed my journey.

On my way I found a log house ten miles from a neighbor just before I got to the Picatonica River.  It belonged to a Mr. Shook who, with his wife and three children, lived on the edge of a small prairie, and had a good crop of corn.  He invited me to stay with him a few days, and as I was tired I accepted his offer and we went out together and brought in a deer.  We had plenty of corn bread, venison and coffee, and lived well.  After a few days he wanted to kill a steer and he led it to a proper place while I shot it in the head.  We had no way to hang it up so he rolled the intestines out, and I sat down with my side against the steer and helped him to pull the tallow off.

It was now getting nearly dark and while he was splitting the back bone with an axe, it slipped in his greasy hands and glancing, cut a gash in my leg six inches above the knee.  I was now laid up for two or three weeks, but was well cared for at his house.  Before I could resume my journey snow had fallen to the depth of about six inches, which made it rather unpleasant walking, but in a few days I reached Mr. Henry’s camp in “Kentuck Grove,” when after comparing notes, we both began swinging our axes and piling up cordwood, cooking potatoes, bread, bacon, coffee and flapjacks ourselves, which we enjoyed with a relish.