It is pleasant to dwell upon the independent character of Western
life, and to go back to the glories of that land and day when a man
who had a rifle and a saddle-blanket was sure of a living, and need
ask neither advice nor permission of any living soul. These days,
vivid, adventurous, heroic, will have no counterpart upon the earth
again. These early Americans, who raged and roared across the West, how
unspeakably swift was the play in which they had their part!
No fiction can ever surpass in vividness the vast, heroic drama of the
West. The clang of steel, the shoutings of the captains, the stimulus
of wild adventure--of these things, certainly, there has been no lack.
There has been close about us for two hundred years the sweeping action
of a story keyed higher than any fiction, more unbelievably bold, more
incredibly keen in spirit.