Very few of them escaped the uncivilizing contamination, and many a youth, fresh from an unfinished course at school, had his book education cut sadly short by bestriding a cayuse and becoming a practical cowboy. The infatuation was not confined to the boys. The girls, too, had as much fondness for the noble brute, and were as expert and graceful in his management. Some of them have ridden seventy-five miles in a day. As a means of social communication at that time it had no equal; and for stock raising and the round-up in such a country, the horseman was unapproachable. Still, with all such advantages, and they were many, which could have been turned into permanent profit, the cowboy generation, though having a "heap of fun," and no doubt genuine pleasure, let the earth slip from under his feet. How could it be otherwise? Who could deny them? A party of boys and girls on their favorite steeds, the former in leggings, bell spurs, and the graceful sirrapa; the latter in the freshness of physical beauty and bedecked with flowing skirts and scarlet streaming sash--when such a cavalcade went galloping over the prairies with a speed that put to shame a Sheridan's ride, what parent could or would deny them. Well, the parents did not deny them this and other diversions from gainful industry, and, little by little, the princely donations of land went into the till of the shopkeeper or the safe of the money changer. Landless and moneyless, they scattered over the country, and, as it were, dropped into all kinds of callings. Many of them have gone east of the Cascades and taken homesteads and pre-emptions in the arid regions, and there upon the bunch grass lands have gained a living and some a competence by stock raising and wool growing. Others followed up the streams into the mountains and in some narrow valley made a home away from the every day temptations of the lowlanders. Others went to the coast. Many of the young have found ample success in other avocations and do not regret the loss of the parental donations. They are found on the bench, at the bar, in the pulpit, in the governmental employ, in college faculties, and in all honorable pursuits. Only a few have ignobly failed, and those few do not invalidate the maxim that "where there is a will there is a way" for falling into the drink habit they lost their wills.