324 CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES 



of a cow-pony is one of the most useful and valuable 

 pieces of experience a young man can possibly have 

 in fitting himself for business of almost any kind, 

 and if I were educating a boy to fight the battles of 

 life, I should secure him such a situation as soon 

 as through with his studies at school. A term of 

 service on a frontier cattle-ranch will take the con- 

 ceit out of any boy. It will, at the same time, teach 

 him self-reliance; it will teach him to endure hard- 

 ships and suffering; it will give him nerve and 

 pluck; it will develop the latent energy in him to a 

 degree that could not be accomplished by any other 

 apprenticeship or experience. I know of many of the 

 most substantial and successful business men in the 

 Western towns and cities of to-day who served their 

 first years on the frontier as ' ' cow punchers, ' ' and to 

 that school they owe the firmness of character and 

 the ability to surmount great obstacles that have 

 made their success in life possible. 



I claim that the constant communion with Nature, 

 the study of her broad, pure domains, the days and 

 nights of lonely cruising and camping on the prairie, 

 the uninterrupted communion with and study of 

 self which this occupation affords, tends to make 

 young men honest and noble much more so than 

 the same men would be if deprived of these oppor- 

 tunities, confined to the limits of our boasted ' ' civ- 

 ilization," and compelled to constantly breathe the 

 air of adroitness, of strategy, of competition, of 

 suspicion and crime. I claim that in many instances a 

 man who is already dishonest and immoral may be, 

 and I know that many have been made good and hon- 

 est by freeing themselves from the evil influences of 



