If this bashfulness holds good socially, it emphatically does not commercially. For in things economic there is far more dash and daring, and bigness of conception and rapidity of realization in Western business affairs than in those of the East. Opportunity is knocking on every hand, and those who think and act most quickly become her lucky hosts. The countries of the West are upbuilding with a rapidity for the most part inconceivable to Europe-traveled Easterners, and affairs move at a lively pace, so that the laggards are left behind and only the able-bodied can keep abreast of the progress. And with all the dangers of the happy-go-lucky methods, the pitfalls of the inherent gambling that lies beneath the surface of much of it, Western business life undoubtedly offers the favored field for the young man of to-day who has, in addition to the normal commercial attributes, the ability to keep his head. [Illustration: A Western mountaineering club on the hike From a photograph by Kiser Photo Co., Portland, Ore.] Greeley's advice was never sounder than to-day; revised, it should read: "Come West, young man, and help the country grow." The start has just been made. Perhaps the days of strident booms are over (let us trust so), and it may be that the bonanza opportunities are for the most part buried in the past, together with the first advent of the railroads, the discoveries of gold, and the exploitation of agriculture, which gave them birth. But the West is getting her second wind. The greater development is yet to come; the Panama Canal, with quickened immigration, manufacturing, and a more thorough-going cultivation of resources than ever in the past, spell that. What has gone before is trivial and inconsequential in comparison with what is to come. Pioneering is along different lines than in the old days, but it still is pioneering, and the call of it is as insistent for ears properly tuned. I hear the tread of pioneers Of cities yet to be, The first low wash of waves where soon Will roll a human sea. The waves have wet the shores, but their true advance has scarce begun. CHAPTER II The Valley of Content Oregon--the old Oregon Territory of yesterday and the State of to-day--is our very own. It was neither bought, borrowed, nor stolen from another nation. It is of the United States because our fathers came here first, carved out homes from the wilderness, and unfurled their flag overhead; through the most fundamental of rights--that of discovery, coupled with possession and development. The New England States we inherited from Britain, although the will was sorely contested. For Louisiana we paid a price. Texas and California we annexed from Mexico, and purchased New Mexico and Arizona. Alaska was bought from Russia for a song. Alone of all the United States the old Oregon Territory became ours by normal acquisition.