The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1923-11-08
"HE WEST, S5 years ago had de.

veloped a distinct type of tn
genus homo who differed a
greatly from his cousins of the east
ern state as Zev differs from a trucl
horse.
These products of western environ
ment had the philosophy of the Arab
the resourcefulness of a Yankee, thu
stick-to-itivenesS of a man-trackint
Indian, and indifference to hardship
the bravery of a Spartan, the imagi
D nation of a Monte Cristo, and the
) restless energy of a Gagged jungle
beast.
They sought for gold, silver, and
other precious metals and, il its
, quest, they crossed the trackless des-
erts of the West-and left theiI
bones to bleach under the p%itiless
rays of a blazing sun. They scaled
mountain peaks-and died of cold
and hunger. They forded the icy
waters of glacier-fed streams or at
tempted passage by means of impro-
vised rafts-and the waters closed
over their heads.
They invaded the forbidden pre-
cincts of what was, to the Indian,
hallowed ground and they were
burned at a stake for their temerity.
Their scalp locks decorated the CEN
ter poles of Indian lodges scattered
from Arizona to the British line,
but despite hunger, cold, starvation
and Indian torture, the stream of
these treasure seekers never slack
ened. They poured across the CONT
nent from st. Joe, Omaha and Kansas
City, or up the Missouri to Fort Ben
ton. Through the southwest by way
of the Sante Fe trail across Nebraska
to Colorado and Utah they poured
carrying in their wake a tide of en-
igration that was checked only by
the waters of the Pacific cea and
which when it could go nc farther
westward eddied and swirled, spread
north and south, up to the Straits of
Georgia and down to the Gulf of Cal
ifornia and then doubled back upon
itself, thus establishing a new en-
pire under the Stars and Stripes and
one which has challenged the wonder
and the admiration of the world.
Added States to Union
These pioneers, treasure seekers,
.searchers after the Golden Fleece or
to use the honored term which the
West coined for their designation
these "prospectors," added, as a di-
rect result of their efforts, the states
of Colorado, Nevada, California, Ida
no and Montana to the American
Indirectly they are entitled
to credit for Washington, Oregon,
New Mexico and Arizona, as we'll as
the Dakotas and Wyoming.
The prospectors, some of them
California Argonauts, 9TH
ers from Colorado and others raw
eastern farm hands or sophisticated
city jewellers from beyond the Miss
issippi, built Butte, Helena, and 9TH
er Montana cities and poured a sore
" needed stream of wealth into the
nation following the severe financial
drain of the Civil war.
1t is probably not too presumptu-
0us to say that were 1t not for the ]
thrilling tales of western adventure, /
If vast wealth, of sudden riches that r
ay almost at the pick-point OF the 5
adventurous ~prospector, the tide of
European immigration would never ,
lay set so strongly for American z
shores as it did in the years pre- {
the a without the wealth
lug from the rocks Of the western r
tates economic conditions dine to an I
)vercrowded population would prob r
ably have caused revolution upon q
evolution and the entire map of fhe
world might have long since been a
.ewritten in terms Of tyrannv and c
Dlond rad If not been for the restless :
,old-digging crew that swarmed In r
California in the 4ns and nv 50 do
ng drove the dons hack TO Mexico n
nd Spain and called the attention OF a
he world to the mineral riches OF !
Western America.
The %prospector fretted under The y
dea of working for a boss" but each =
winter he put his pride in his pocket. G
Inless he had made a rich strike in
he summer months, and came back q
0 the established mining camps to f
arm a GRUB stake" for the sum- T.
work. In some parts OF the q
Vest the prospector was known as a %
bird" He came TO the min a
1g or smelling camp with the first
now fall and left at the first thaw "
lie was nearly always accompanied .
later years by one or two bnrros, &
nose sure-footed, intelligent little "
casts of which it used to be said n
nat heavier you load them the fast II
r they travel" Il
Accompanied by his faithful pack D
nimals, usually two in number, pros e
would f~earlessly set out across
desert with not a water hole of
'esh water closer than 40 miles or r
Lore. The man and his four-footed
lends would scale mountain peaks
along trails as narrow as
lie coping on a wall, where a mo-
.ent of dizziness or a misstep meant
cath on jagged rocks 1000 feet
Glow.
They Were Thick
The prospectors were more numer-
is than the leaves on Valambrosa.
In the sos Chestnut street In Lead