THE PIONEER WEST [Illustration: Dr. Steele, president of the gulch, acted as judge. FRONTISPIECE. _See page 234._] THE PIONEER WEST _NARRATIVES OF THE WESTWARD MARCH OF EMPIRE_ SELECTED AND EDITED BY JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH WITH A FOREWORD BY HAMLIN GARLAND ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY REMINGTON SCHUYLER [Illustration] BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1924 _Copyright, 1923_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. _All rights reserved_ Published October, 1923 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time’s noblest offspring is the last. BISHOP BERKELEY. VITAL PAGES IN AMERICAN HISTORY The history of America is the story of trail-makers, pioneers in every sense of the word. Our forefathers had trails to make in new fields of government, of invention and in city building, but before all, smoothing the way for all, came the men and women who explored and ploughed and planted the wilderness. Their story will grow in interest as the years pass. Their deeds have already taken on something of the dim quality of heroic myths. They form the most distinctive of our contributions to history and poetry. Many of the most stark and stirring of these chronicles of the border have passed out of print and are now inaccessible even to the painstaking student. It is from among these almost forgotten, yet vital records that Mr. French has selected the chapters of his book of narratives of the PIONEER WEST. I am personally grateful to him for rescuing for me several of these chronicles of which I had heard but which I had not been able to read until they came to me in this volume. I perceive in this collection another link in the lengthening chain of our traditional story. The Great War has thrown the events of our early settlement suddenly into remote distance. It is as if an extra half-century had been abruptly interposed, and this added perspective has given us a new and keener interest in the beginnings of our nation.