LET 'ER BUCK 



his attention on what he was doing and not on the 

 impression he was making on the audience. So to 

 achieve this as well as to hold the attention of the 

 audience itself, it was decided that as far as possible, 

 all the elements which went to make up the Old West 

 were to be translated into competitive form. 



In consideration of the spectacular element they 

 decided that the proper landscape effect and setting was 

 the primary consideration. A small gully, a remnant 

 of the river bed, was left unfilled, which really pre- 

 vented anything being built directly in front of the 

 Indian camp and gave a sunken landscape foreground 

 from which the Indian camp could be seen. Next, by 

 leaving the back stretch of the track free from bleach- 

 ers and filling this in with mounted cowboys, these 

 hundreds of horsemen in colored shirts, kerchiefs and 

 garb produced a magnificent spectacle as seen across 

 from the grandstand with the Indian tepees and the 

 cottonwoods for a stage setting, framed by the golden 

 hills of Oregon behind. The climax of this spectacle 

 was the great number of cowboys and Indians in the 

 arena in serpentine and other convolutions, terminat- 

 ing in a great charge across it, almost into the laps of 

 the spectators — it hit them in the face with over- 

 whelming numbers. 



Laughter, strange as it may seem in the humor-lov- 

 ing West, was the hardest element of all to handle. 

 It was impossible to figure out any comedy that would 

 not be produced at the expense of the naturalness and 

 historic quality which above all they decided to retain, 

 and which above all must be retained as the vital ele- 

 ment in the show. They wisely decided they would 

 not make any deliberate attempt to plant comedy, and 

 that they would leave it to accidental incidents. 



22 



