In regard to the classification of this material, varied and apparently heterogeneous, yet really interdependent, under the four epochs or volume-heads mentioned, I refer to the table given on another page. As justification of what might be called presumption on the part of the writer in undertaking a work of this nature, he has only to plead a sincere interest in the West, which was his own native land; a love for that free American life now all too rapidly fading away; and a deep admiration for the accomplishments of that American civilization which never was and never will be any better than the man that made it. It has not been the intention herein to write a history of the American people, but a history of the American man. EMERSON HOUGH. Chicago, Illinois, June, 1903. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE WAY TO THE WEST CHAPTER I THE AMERICAN AX I ask you to look at this splendid tool, the American ax, not more an implement of labor than an instrument of civilization. If you can not use it, you are not American. If you do not understand it, you can not understand America. This tool is so simple and so perfect that it has scarcely seen change in the course of a hundred years. It lacks decoration, as do the tools and the weapons of all strong peoples. It has no fantastic lines, no deviations from simplicity of outline, no ornamentations, no irregularities. It is simple, severe, perfect. Its beauty is the beauty of utility. In the shaft of the ax there is a curve. This curve is there for a reason, a reason of usefulness. The simple swelling head is made thus not for motives of beauty, but for the purpose of effectiveness. The shaft, an even yard in length, polished, curved, of a formation that shall give the greatest strength to a downright blow in combination with the greatest security to the hand-grasp, has been made thus for a century of American life. This shaft is made of hickory, the sternest of American woods, the one most capable of withstanding the hardest use. It has always been made thus and of this material.