Dates are at best no more than milestones on the pathway of time;
and in the present instance it is not the milestones but the road
itself with which we are concerned. Where does the road begin?
Why comes it hither? Whither does it lead? These are the real
questions.
Under all the exuberance of the life of the range there lay a
steady business of tremendous size and enormous values. The
"uproarious iniquity" of the West, its picturesqueness, its
vividness--these were but froth on the stream. The stream itself
was a steady and somber flood. Beyond this picturesqueness of
environment very few have cared to go, and therefore sometimes
have had little realization of the vastness of the cowboy's
kingdom, the "magnitude of the interests in his care, or the
fortitude, resolution, and instant readiness essential to his
daily life." The American cowboy is the most modern
representative of a human industry that is second to very few in
antiquity.
Julius Caesar struck the note of real history: Quorum pars magna
fui--"Of which I was a great part." If we are to seek the actual
truth, we ought most to value contemporary records,
representations made by men who were themselves a part of the
scenes which they describe.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48