White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1933-09-14
BY Donald Wheeler.


Othello. Yet the sight OF it sprawling
drab and unlovely in the desert set
our nerves tingling one day last month.
For Othello was to be the Jumping
OFT place OF long adventure-an adj
venture that would take us far into
a region unknown to any of us. We
had our wits to remedy the lightness
Of our purse, and enthusiasm to get |
us over the rough places. We had need !
OF both.
Perhaps there is no more desolate |
country on earth than the ultra-ma |
ginal wheat lands between Othello and
Lind. But we cared not lick, for we |
were installed on top OF car of tim |
bers, night masked The ugliness of the |
abandoned fields, the hammer OF iron
on steel lulled us, and we slept.
find that neither 1 nor any OF the |
others had rolled off the top during |
the night. decided they had frozen
too stiff to roll, and prepared to dump |
them off onto the right-of-Way, but
when l kicked Walker he moved, so
changed my mind. Joe and Emil
Wagner and Lloyd Williams also APP
peared to be still functioning.
The freights are cold. There are no
empties eastbound; we rode the top of
the timbers all the way, and the wind
cut through our blankets like a
Whetted knife. The tinbers weren't
exactly a feather bed-we didn't know
whether or not to be glad that the
rocking and jolting of the car kept
us in the air hall the time. I got
| plenty tired OF the endless rhythmic
hammering. The afternoons sizzled and
Shimmered, the wind parched our lips
| and Redeemed our eyes. The nights
| froze. The way of the Smoky Trail.
| But it is a grand trail for all of that.
Here the even amber of the wheat
stretched away until the rolling hills
met the blue sky. Against the intense
color Of the grain the sombre brown
Of the summer-fallow stood out, a
giant patchwork of geometric projec-
lions on tumbled surface. The higher
hills are crested, the wandering
lcreek bottoms are traced with willow.
.-.......And then the Bitter Roots in
brooding majesty over the canyons
where the creeks fly jade-green and
foam -flecked among the boulders. The
railway twists up ravines and through
dripping, staring black tunnels where
the thunder of the wheels reverber
ated in the blind darkness, coming at
last to look down on itself three miles
away and three thousand feet below.
Then down the Missoula and up again,
four, five, six thousand feet on the
Backbone-of- thew orld where the
peaks are Scared by the trail of the
snow-slide and the wind tortures the
fir trees into fantastic shapes.
! Pipestone Pass, and we are in the
Beyond the Mountains Land. Montana
still, the Bad Lands, Herefords stand
ing in the water holes, melancholy
ranch houses among the cottonwoods.
The mountains died away, the timber
gave up the struggle with the brassy
sky, and we were in Dakota. The plains
stretched away forever, burnt ana
desolate. Lonely homesteads among the
Weed-oppressed wheat lands, empty
elevators beside the track, and every
where the heartbreaking aspect of
ruined land The Minnesota corn was
better than knee high, the creeks
flowed again. Wisconsin is beautiful
after the Great Plains-wooded hills
and lakes and rivers.
Chicago is big in a way that knocks
your wind out. San Francisco resembles
Allard by comparison. Even in these
times the city looks at the sun through
an eternal smoke-pall, the air is
hideous with the smell of stock yards
and steel mills and chemical plants
and worse, the roar of the IL" scarcely
browns the crash of stamping mill,
Shrek of lathe, the howl of steam, and
everywhere the thunder of traffic.
Yet Michigan Boulevard lies broad
and serene in the sun; on the one
side the great wall of skyscrapers
crowds out the sky, but azure Michigan
lies whitecapped and beautiful beyond.
A Century of Progress! There is
Sophoclean irony in the official desig-
nation of the Worlds Fair I reflected
that A Century of Motion would have
been more accurate way of putting
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