The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1884-06-14
THE BY GONE WEST
Modern Camp not the Camp
Of the wild ernees.
n.. u.,,,,t Can Now Desolates mo
Obscure Trail-Malaria' ARue'
Old Sledge and Fun
SKIP Out.
(Bill Nye ]

80 nI he wiIderness, and then allow
inv the wilderness to develop ai!ei.
ward has Knocked the essential Joy
ont If the life of the pioneer. Al one
time the hardy newer OF woo6 anu
drawer of water gave MS nie ~
| willingly that his son m:snI h hi" Dbl.
the "vafnished cars" NOW Ile
man palace car takes the ne"
| Yorker to the threshold OF the sea-,
or to the boundary line between VIC
| limited States ana the British POSSES
siOns. .a,,d
It has driven out the long handled
| irving pan and the fap.jack OF ~
Gears ago, and introduced the con-
| densed milk and canned fruit OF COM
merce. Along the highways, Wheie
| once the hopeful hundreds marched
| with long-hand,ed shovel and pick:
| and pan, cooked by the way thin l
! pork and ffapjacks and siumguliion,
| now the road is lined with empty
beer bottles and peach cans hat have
cutlived their usefulness. NO land
scape can be picturesque with an
empty peach can in the foreground,
apI more than a lion would look
QraDU Ill d IOU LIOIlOSl0uA AoAoS oA'sA
ket and false teeth.
TIE modern camp is not the camp
of the wilderness. 1t wears the half
civilized and shabby-geRteel gar
ments of a sawed off town. You
knox that if you ride a day you will
be where you can get the daily pa
pers and read them under the cleo
trio light. That robs the old canyons
of their solemn isolation, and peoples
each gulch with the odor of codtish~
balls and civilization. Civilization
is not to blame for this, and yet it
seems sad
Civilization could not have Gone
this ali alone. 1t had to call to its
aid the Internal fruit can that now
desolates the most obscure trail in
the heart of the mountains. You
walk over chaos where the "hydraul-
ic" has ploWed up the ground like a
CONFUSION, or you tread a yielding
path across the deserted dump and
on all sides the rusty, neglected, and
Inundated tin can stares at you
with its monotonous, dude-like stare.
An Oll-timer said to me one: ''I've
about decided, Bill, that the West is
a matter of history. Wen we cooked
our grub over a sage brush fire, W.
could get fat and fight indians; but
now we fill our d'gester with the old
piz.n and pewter of the canned
peach; we go to a big tavern and
stick a towel under Il chins, and
eat pie with a fork, aid heat up u
carkisses with antichrist coal, and
what do we amount to? nuthin! l
used to chase Injuns all day and eat
raw salt pork at night bekuz |
dassent build a fire. and still [ felt
better than [ do now with a wad of
tin can solder in my stummlck and
a homesick feeling in MY water
beaten breast.
mo, we don't have the fun we
used to. W. have more swar-
res and sciatica and n bloomin'
thing and another Of hat kind, but
we don't get One snort of pure air
and appetite in a year. They're
bringln' in their telephones now,
and malaria, and ague, and Ola
sledge and fun might as we'll skip
out. There aim. no frontier any
more. Ali we've got left Is the old
fashioned frontier joos and rhumatiz
Of 40"
Behind the red squaw's cayuse plug,
The hand car rears and raves,
And pie-plant pies are now produced
Above the indian graves.
l hear the oaths Of pioneers,
The Caucus yet to be,
The first low hun wnece soon will come
he fnzzy humble bee.
IN TAE HTTRR1CANE