FRONTIERSPIECE 



with the fact that the West still retains its frontier 

 characteristics, its lore and songs. There are even now 

 living pioneers who, through the round openings at the 

 end of the ox-drawn prairie schooner, saw the East 

 diminish and the West grow big; who have lived 

 through the days of the log cabin with its puncheon 

 floor and the "shake" house, and stocked their first 

 larders with buffalo, antelope and bear meat from plain 

 and mountain. 



Through arduous days and nights, hard at their best, 

 and rendered desperate by Indian wars, whole scattered 

 settlements had to "fort up"; through those days 

 when defiance of law was in the foreground and out- 

 lawry ruled, they endured until the level-headed better 

 class organized the "vigilantes" and "passed on" some 

 of the notorious bad characters by the "short cut" in- 

 stead of the usual "highway round" and brought the 

 "bad man" to the realization that human law is a neces- 

 sity. Thus through the pioneers' progress they have 

 passed to the today of palatial homes, protection of the 

 law, the telephone, telegraph and canned foods. 



Many an actor who carried the principal parts 

 against the background of this greatest of national 

 melodramas still stalks in the flesh. There are yet to 

 be found, tucked away in stray corners, the cattle 

 rancher, cowboy, sheriff, horse-thief, ranger, road 

 agent, trapper and trader, the old stage driver, freight- 

 er, gambler, canoeman, the missionary, pioneer 

 woman, old-time scout, the placer-miner, the Indian — 

 all pioneer types, primeval actors in this great dramat- 

 ic Odyssey of American adventure and development, 

 the building of the West. 



Yes, many of the actors are here, but the scenery has 

 changed and most of them are out of a job. Yet in 



