OUT WHERE THE WEST BEGINS 



occasionally rides into town a-whooping; where the 

 rustler still "rustles," and the sheriff and his posse pur- 

 sue with the same cautious dash or reckless bravado 

 that have given these unplumed knights of the range a 

 permanent place in American history. 



The frontiersman, often the unnamed explorer, was 

 always the advance-guard of civilization, who, with 

 the cavalry outposts, held and ever advanced the fron- 

 tier. They were the pioneer winners of the West, the 

 protectors and sponsors for a thinner-blooded civiliza- 

 tion which followed in their wake. 



Through the West of today one skirts fruit-laden 

 hillsides and valleys larger than many Eastern counties, 

 rolls past vast wheat-fields, as big as some nations, and 

 pauses at the cities — big, white, and new — seemingly 

 grown up in a night out of the prairies. There is a 

 breezy frankness in the way of the well-paved, broad 

 "Main" Street, wonderfully lit up with its cluster of 

 lights, strikes out at right angles to the track from a 

 well-designed station, inviting you through the town, 

 to let you out as frankly on to the prairie. It all be- 

 speaks, youth, growth and optimism. 



Suddenly a small black wraith of smoke smooched 

 the low-rolling hillsides. The lad yanked the signal 

 cord, and before the train had stopped, was speeding 

 pail in hand, toward the cinder-started blaze. 



"He'll pick us up around the bend at Athena," the 

 brakeman said. 



In less than an hour we rolled into Pendleton. I 

 swung off the train in the tang of the September 

 morning. A suppressed exuberance and expectancy 

 seemed to emanate from the quiet stir of the attractive 

 little city. Bunting, streamers, and flags bulged and 

 flapped gracefully in the soft lift of air which draws 



9 



