These men became the peculiar heroes of the frontier, and their
names were household words in the log cabins of the children, and
children's children, of their contemporaries. They were warriors of the
type of the rude champions who in the ages long past hunted the mammoth
and the aurochs, and smote one another with stone-headed axes; their
feats of ferocious personal prowess were of the kind that gave honor and
glory to the mighty men of time primeval. Their deeds were not put into
books while the men themselves lived; they were handed down by
tradition, and grew dim and vague in the recital. What one fierce
partisan leader had done might dwindle or might grow in the telling or
might finally be ascribed to some other; or else the same feat was
twisted into such varying shapes that it became impossible to recognize
which was nearest the truth, or what man had performed it.
The Border Leaders.
Often in dealing with the adventures of one of these old-time border
warriors--Kenton, Wetzel, Brady, Mansker, Castleman,--all we can say is
that some given feat was commonly attributed to him, but may have been
performed by somebody else, or indeed may only have been the kind of
feat which might at any time have been performed by men of his stamp.
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