New-York tribune., 1922-09-03

critical, (. standards are slip
III perry things at best. But there
VI is one common deuominator.
~ hear parable of il. "When :
was boy,' said person with
whom had violently disagreed over a
certain book, 81 lived in q small Town
IN the Middle Southwest. A lob tool
me North at the age of seventeen. and
1 naturally became very homesick. One
night went to the theater and sau .
eorking play. forget the name of Il
nut among other spirited devices it in.
eiuded train wreck. The whole af-
ialr was the best that could be done
before the advent of the movies. fuIl
OF satisfying thrills, vivid, vital. grin
ping. But for me the climax was
reached when the practicable switch
engine slowly backed onto the stage
string of practicable box cars, and one
OF those box cars bore the mystic let
tering: Baltimore & Ohio r, r. The
opera house rafters shook with INV
piaudits, almost I wept with esthetic
Joy. Maybe didn't know anything
spout dramatic art, but you couldn't
1901 me about B. g. o. box car. Hadn't
been raised with them? That plav
was the real thing"
Such confession would be unbe-
coming in professional reviewer.
whose attitude must be ever coldlv
aioof, To the question "Usen't YOU
uset to work for the B. & OF" such a
one must reply with hauteur: what
Oh ~" All the same, when l picked
up Beyond Rope and Fence,S and
round the blessed word Saskatchewan
starring me in the face, my instant pre-
occupation was to see if it really was
| the Saskatchewan---or had the man eot
IL out of Rand McNally? Abana and
Fharpar rivers of Damascus would not
40 Tor an instant as substitute. 1T
must be genuine B. & O.
But Mr.. Grew knows his subject
Errors In his presentation might pos
sibly be discovered; the Saskatchewan is
pretty long and tolerably broad. But
this David Grew knows what the prairie
looks like and can tell horse from a
handsaw, even when the wind is north
er'J. In fact, he has achieved the
truest and most graphic picture of the
open country of the Canadian West
1hat mas ever been put on paper.
The prairie is, so to speak, princi-
pal character in his book. And the
heroine is buckskin mare, Queen
Dora. The author loves horses and
understands them. He does not need
to fake them into a gruesome semi
humanity to find them interesting.
Queen Dora is simply horse, q crea-
ture Of instinct and just enough in
telligence for her needs. That is a
little more than the equine average,
for If animals were the least bit clev-
erer than they are they would not
allow man to subject them to his will.
But they have intelligence and much
individuality, they are capable of last
ing friendships, of grief, of resentment
and even rpvnprsf,,I faalipuc o,,,L
horses are the most amiable and gentle
of all the brute kind. Queen Dora was
a range foal; by chance and her
mothers skill she evaded the halter
and branding iron until she was a full
grown mare. Her spirited nature made
her leader of little band of wild
horses; her affection for her herd
mates led her at last into bondage.
She had the worst of luck, falling into
the hands of human beast, who broke
her with cruelty, overworked sand
starved her. The episode is mourn
fully true; too many, even though a
minority, of ranchers are insensibIe to
the sufferings of their cattle. When
Dora got loose again she had learned
by experience what she knew previ-
ously by instinct. She made for the
North, and there we part with her,
beyond rope and fence" beyond the
great river, the unsettled country,
where she can spend the rest of her
life in joyous freedom.
The author is a capable narrator, who
relies upon plain tale told in sober
English, without sentimentality or ex-
aggeration. II he does not quite cap
ture the peculiar magic of the prairie
prairie has magic, like the sea. 1t can
not be apprehended by the casual tour
ist. is utterly invisible from Pullman
window. Nothing on earth is uglier
than prairie town; but nothing is
loyelier than midsummer dawn on the
prairie, from some vantage point
where neither man nor his markings
are visible, only earth and sky as on the
first morning of creation when God
looked upon His work and saw that it
was good 1t has a strange freshness
words cannot convey, unless the words
of Shelley, singer of things ethereal
and inpalpable. To say that Mr.. Grew
is not Shelley is scarcely derogatory.
He has done great deal better than
any one else of the numerous tribe
who have essayed his task.
For the minor errors: deponent saith
that horses do not lick each other, not
even their colts, so far as her observa-
tion goes. Cows do, and most other
animals; but horses caress only with
their lips. That is why foal born in
a storm is much more likely to die
than calf under the same circum-
stances. Yet Mr.. Grew repeatedly has
his horses perform this feat Nor have
| ever seen horse lie down in the
snow or when snow is falling. The
poor creatures appear never to lie down
in winter on the range. However, they
are adaptable animals; it may be that
in the North, where the winters are un
broken by chinooks and the snow lies
deep for many months, they form new
habits. But they don't lick each other;
] hold to that!
Mr.. Terhune, the historian of Lad"
probably knows more about dogs than
| do. He easily could. But he ought
to convince me of the reality of the
phenomena he relates. LAD is pretty
hard to believe in. Collies undoubted-
ly are uncannily clever; but a dog that
had as many adventures as Lad would
die of nervous exhaustion in middle
life; or his owner would. Lads career
is just one long succession of bur-
glaries, fires, kidnapings, and assault
with battery. Always he is equal to
the occasion; he chases off trespassers,
captures thieves and retrieves their
loot, rescues drowning men, finds
- L Il