Now appears
in history Fort Benton, on the Missouri, the great northern
supply post--just as at an earlier date there had appeared Fort
Hall, one of the old fur-trading posts beyond the Rockies, Bent's
Fort on the Arkansas, and many other outposts of the new Saxon
civilization in the West.
Later came the pony express and the stage coach which made
history and romance for a generation. Feverishly, boisterously, a
strong, rugged, womanless population crowded westward and formed
the wavering, now advancing, now receding line of the great
frontier of American story.
But for long there was no sign of permanent settlement on the
Plains, and no one thought of this region as the frontier. The
men there who were prospecting and exploiting were classified as
no more than adventurers. No one seems to have taken a lesson
from the Indian and the buffalo. The reports of Fremont long
since had called attention to the nourishing quality of those
grasses of the high country, but the day of the cowboy had not
yet dawned. There is a somewhat feeble story which runs to the
effect that in 1866 one of the great wagon-trains, caught by the
early snows of winter, was obliged to abandon its oxen on the
range.
Pages:
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37