writer's knowledge goes, the Indian never lifted a finger to make his paths better in any one respect; it seems probable that, oftentimes, when a stream was to be crossed, which could not be forded, the Indian bent his steps to the first fallen tree whose trunk made a natural bridge across the water. That an Indian never felled such a tree, it is impossible to say; but no such incident has come within my reading. It seems that this must have happened and perhaps was of frequent occurrence.
Our first picture, then, of a "blind" trail is succeeded by one of a trail made rougher and a little wider merely by use; a trail over which perhaps the agents of a Croghan or a Gist pushed westward with more and more heavily-loaded pack-horses than had been customarily seen on the trails thither. Of course such trails as began now to have some appearance of roads were very few. As was true of the local paths in Massachusetts and Connecticut and Virginia, so of the long trails into the interior of the continent, very few answered all purposes. Probably by 1750
