Stewart Edward White 
The Blazed Trail [EPUB ebook] 

The blazed trail is written by Stewart Edward White and the story begins when the American Pioneer is described as resourceful, self-reliant, and bold, adapting himself with fluidity to diverse circumstances and conditions. He satisfies his needs directly from the earth, substituting rawhide for leather, buckskin for cloth, and venison for canned tomatoes. We feel that his steps are planted on solid earth, for civilizations may crumble without disturbing him. He has something about him that other men do not possess, a frank clearness of the eye and an air of muscular well-being. Instead of pleasure, he seeks orgies. He turns to reckless drinking, brawling, and partying excesses. He has a sweet but also awful disposition. The jobber was paid as the work was completed, rather than being paid proportionally by stage of the process. Radway's task was not merely to level out and ballast the six feet of a roadbed, but to cut a way for five miles through the unbroken wilderness.