In his young manhood the writer of these sketches came up into this
realm of widest vision, clearest skies, sweetest waters, and happiest
people to engraft the green twig of his life upon the activities of
the mountaineers of the thrilling West.
At that time the vast plains and the barren valleys were silvered over
with the ubiquitous sage through which crept lazily and aimlessly the
many unharnessed arroyo-making streams waiting only the appearance of
their master, man. Under his scientific, skilled, and economic
guidance these wild waters, lassoed, tamed, and set to work, taking
the place of clouds where there are none, were soon to cause the gray
garden of nature to become goldened by the well-nigh illimitable acres
of grain and other home-making products.
The West has an abundant variety of life of a sort most intensely
human. Life, always so earnest in Anglo-Saxon lands, seems to have
accentuated individuality here in a wondrous and contagious degree.
These few stories, culled from the répertoire of an active life of
more than thirty years, are samples of personal experiences, and are
taken almost at random from mining camp, frontier town and settlement,
public and private life.
As a minister the writer has had wide and varied opportunities in all
the Northwest, but more especially in Utah, Oregon, and Idaho. Many a
man much more modest has far excelled him in life experiences, but
some of them have never told.
This little handful of goldenrod is affectionately dedicated to them
of the Trails.