Hiking Westward

Being the Story of Two Boys Whose Ambition

Led Them to Face Privations and Hardships

in Their Quest of a Home in the Great West

By

ROGER W. CONANT

ILLUSTRATED BY

FRANK T. MERRILL

W. A. WILDE COMPANY

BOSTON—CHICAGO

Copyrighted, 1920,

By W. A. Wilde Company

All rights reserved

Hiking Westward

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story appeared under the title of “The Young Homesteaders”, by J. W. Lincoln—my pen name, but the edition was quickly withdrawn and now, over my own name and with corrections and revisions, I desire to place it in the hands of all the boys I can as a true picture of early pioneer days.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

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

Hiking Westward