Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 2).djvu/54

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
50
INDIAN THOROUGHFARES

trail than any other early Indian thoroughfare, flanked by a thousand secret hiding-places and lined with a long succession of open spots where warring parties were wont to camp. Who may ever write the real story of the great "Warriors' Path" which ran southward through western Pennsylvania from the home-land of the Iroquois? What scenes of carnage have not those Alleghany ranges witnessed in all the years gone by! The long journeys on the war path, which was more of a "thoroughfare" than any trail, keenly tested the savage's endurance. Swiftly he journeyed many miles for a sudden stroke upon his enemy, enduring the while any lack of food and water without complaint. Food was all about him if the need was pressing, and some food could always be carried. But water was not always at hand, and this the Indian seldom, if ever, carried.

It is probably impossible for us of today to imagine what springs were worth to the first travelers on these primitive thoroughfares of America. We hardly notice, unless by a complaint, when our trains of today