The Men of the West 41 



lawyer, the doctor, and the parson may well join in 

 the farmer's prayers for rain. To all, a drought spells 

 ruin. These big gamblers are the curse of a new 

 country. They have done enormous harm to the 

 State of California. They impoverished the soil that 

 yielded at first fabulous harvests, and they impover- 

 ished the souls of those dependent upon their success 

 and failure. Credit is the life blood of a new country; 

 it irrigates the waste places of the earth. Without 

 it the greater portion of the West would be to-day 

 what it was in the time of Daniel Webster — a wilder- 

 ness. But credit, like water, can do grievous harm. 

 Credit, in full flood, has swept from the West those 

 habits of thrift and industry and patience that alone 

 make for character and prosperity in a community, 

 as in an individual. They will return, they are 

 now returning, halting in the wake of adversity, 

 and under more generous conditions will become 

 vertebrate and vigorous. 



In the old days, it will be remembered, Lot chose 

 the plain, and to Abraham was given the hill. And 

 since those ancient times, it has always seemed to 

 me that the best men live nearest the stars. Cer- 

 tainly in the West you will find that the mountain- 

 eers are a finer race, more robust than their brethren 

 of the plain, simpler in their habits, breathing a 

 purer air and leading a purer life. For the most 

 part they are miners or cattlemen. If you meet 

 dne of these fellows, be sure and mark the quality 

 of his glance. George Eliot's much criticised adjec- 

 tive " dynamic " describes it best, — that all-compel- 

 ling gaze, the glance of a man whose eyes are 

 weapons not of offence, but of defence. In the foot- 



