STEEP TRAILS 



wealth of an available kind abounds nearly 

 everj^where, in\iting the farmer, the stock- 

 raiser, the lumberman, the fisherman, the 

 manufacturer, and the miner, as well as the 

 free walker in search of knowledge and wild- 

 ness. The scener\' is mostly of a comfortable, 

 assuring kind, grand and inspiring without 

 too much of that dreadful overpowering sub- 

 limity and exuberance which tend to discour- 

 age effort and cast people into inaction and 

 superstition. 



Ever since Oregon was first heard of in the 

 romantic, adventurous, hunting, trapping Wild 

 West days, it seems to have been regarded 

 as the most attractive and promising of all 

 the Pacific countries for farmers. While yet 

 the whole region as well as the way to it was 

 wild, ere a single road or bridge was built, 

 undaunted by the trackless thousand-mile 

 distances and scalping, cattle-steafing Indians, 

 long trains of covered wagons began to crawl 

 wearily westward, crossing how many plains, 

 rivers, ridges, and mountains, fighting the 

 painted savages and weariness and famine. 

 Setting out from the frontier of the old West 

 in the spring as soon as the grass would 

 support their cattle, they pushed on up the 

 Platte, making haste slowly^ however, that 

 they might not be caught in the storms of win- 



272 



