128 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



These are dear to the sons and daughters of the 

 West: the promise, so to speak, of better and hap- 

 pier days, when life on the Pacific Slope will be 

 purged of what is mean and sordid, purged and 

 purified. 



This is the dream of those who love the West. 

 Is it only a dream, a vision of Utopia ? It would 

 seem that only cities please a generation not con- 

 tent with rural joys. Worldly wisdom, what 

 Maurus Jokai calls our evil angel, tells a young 

 man that he can never make a fortune on a ranch, 

 which is true. It is also true that the same young 

 man, nine times out of ten, will make no more 

 than a bare living in the town, but this knowledge 

 is withheld from him. Only the very few have 

 the money-making capacity; only the very few 

 can come to their full stature in the over-crowded 

 streets of a big town ; the many die in middle 

 age, worn out and weary, sick in mind and body, 

 paupers in all that constitutes true wealth. At 

 the mines, on the cattle ranges, in the orchards 

 and vineyards, on the farms, these same men, 

 working as hard and patiently, would preserve 

 their health, achieve independence, and learn at 

 length the lessons that only Nature can impart, 

 the lessons which teach a man not only how to live. 

 but how to die. 



