Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-03-25


mountain.
Perhaps in all American geography
there is no other name so potent in its
very mention to transport the mind into
a wide and wonderful realm of romance.
What Knights and chivalry, castles and
crusades, are to the history of Europe,
such to the history of America is 1.-THE
Border" and all that pertains to it. In
the minds of every American youth the
Western hunters and trappers are at
least the peers of the knights, the pio-
neers and gold-hunters of the crusaders,
and the border blockhouse. the rude and
roaring mining camp and the lonely
campfire are worthier OF glorifcation
in song and story than feudal castles,
splendid tournaments and the knight
Grants quest. All this illimitable and
indescribabe romance is, in express
sion, condensed in the two phrases.
1.-The Plains" and 1.-The Mountains"
and to both these the single index is
that grand landmark, Pixies Peak.
Among the passengers was one l had
known something of in earlier years.
young fellow of twenty who had just
left Beloit College, where he had been
paying his own way by outside work
during vacations-for he was an or
phan. 1t seems that he was not very
far from the goal of his college course
-graduation-when the hints of spring
in the atmosphere, relaxing the physi-
cal system and bringing on the "spring
fever" under the influence of which the
student has an almost irresistible long
ing for outdoor life and action and a
great distaste for books and study, left
him fit subject for an overwhelming
attack of western fever" brought on
by incautious reading of Western cor
respondence in the newspapers and a
too trustful perusal of folder of the
Atchison, Topeka d Santa Fe Railroad.
wherein the riches and attractions of
Colorado and New Mexico were set
forth in glowing fables, which might
have fired colder heart and turned an
older head than those of college stu.
dent of scarcely more than twenty
years of age.
That he should leave his college
course unfinished and rush aimlessly to
an Ell Dorado was no doubt foolish; but
it was folly which had much company
and many precedents, old and new. The
stanza of the old song:
"Hoi no for the West - the student cries.
scholar OF earthly lore;
Those books on his shelf ne never himself
Shall have any need Of more,
is just as applicable now as when it was
written of the forty Miners" And in
the old song it was not the student only,
but the lawyer and the judge, the mer-
chant and the farmer, who echoed the
refrain, "Ho no for the Westr' If
this romantic folly were not so wide
spread, American history would be
tanner and less important than it is
if, indeed, there would be any worth
mentioning.
AS literature is the reflection of hui
man action and feeling, this long series
of stirring and thrilling actions has
found its expression in literature; it
shines through and glorifies many
printed page-chronicle, narrative and
song. fact, fiction and poetry. But this
romantic literature is equally as liable
to perversion as WAS the romantic liter
allure of Europe. The vicious, pervert-
ed and ridiculous, but universally pop-
ular, romance-books of the DAYS of
Cervantes were not more deserving of
the scourge of satire than is much of the
Western" literature of this country
to-day. This vicious, deluding and
perverted literature is of three principal
classes; first, the works of fiction usual
ly called "Indian steriesn or aWestern
novels" the writer's of which are
as ignorant of what they attempt to
describe as are their boy readers, and
the widest and most confused misin-
formation is absorbed from them. Sec
ond, the productions of those writers
employed directly or Indirectly by the
railroad companies, land and town lot
spectators and mine spectators, to
"boom" the regions in which they are
interested. This class includes mauy Of
the newspapers in the undeveloped re-
gions of the West. With all these a
few thin facts are skillfully used to out
line and give n semblance OF truth to
vast surfaces OF gorgeously colored fic-
ton. The third class is the newspaper
correspondence written by those who
see the regions they presume to de-
scribe only through the windows of a
palace car or the tobacco smoke of
hotel bar-room. Wishing only plenty Of
highly colored material, they are quite
willing to take ready-made the skiIlfully
designed statements of spectators
agents or the widest fictions Of the fire.
quenters of the Western bar-rooms.
many OK whom have well developed
faculty of oral rOmancing.
The train stopped at La Junta, and
my companion and /, with two or three
of our fellow passengers, remained there
while the train. bearing most of the
passengers, sped straight on westward
toward the mountains. A very small
depot and very small saloon formed
most of the city of La Junta. All
around these few lonely little houses,
to the east, north and south. the vast
plain was unbroken by any object of
interest except the two railroad tracks,