CHAPTER I 



THE WEST 



What is the West? The very word "West" is fas- 

 cinating, full of inspiration and attainment. We have all 

 felt the impulse of Greeley's wise advice, "Go west, 

 young man." Not only do we want to be in the West 

 ourselves, but every state and every country wants to be 

 a part of the West. Probably the only countries that do 

 not claim to be West are India and China. Japan no 

 longer admits herself as being eastern, but now claims to 

 be the West, to say nothing of the western pretensions of 

 the remainder of the world, from New York to Petrograd. 

 But regardless of the claims of others, there is in the minds 

 of the American people but one West and that is the great 

 jgion lying between the one-hundredth meridian and the 

 x-'acific Ocean. In this book we shall deal exclusively with 

 this territory, comprising the western parts of the Dakotas, 

 Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and the whole 

 * the eleven states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New 

 jLexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, 

 Oregon, and California. 



TOPOGRAPHY 



With the exception of some areas in the extreme west 



'^d southwest, all of the territory considered under the 



,, neral term of "The West," as used in this book, lies at 



3 



