107
AMONG THE HILLS 117
The Mother Deer 119
The Shepherd 121
The Feathered Drummer 122
MORMONDOM 123
The Trail of the Mormon 125
Some Mormon Beliefs 131
Weber Tom, Ute Polygamist 138
Polygamy of To-Day 145
GREAT SALT LAKE 149
ARGONAUT SAM'S TALE 157
THE WRAITH OF THE BLIZZARD 167
THE GREAT NORTHWEST 175

ILLUSTRATIONS

J. D. Gillilan _Frontispiece_
Chief Joseph, Nez Perce Indian 64
Wallowa Lake 94
End of the Trail 183

PREFACE

In his young manhood the writer of these sketches came up into this
realm of widest vision, clearest skies, sweetest waters, and happiest
people to engraft the green twig of his life upon the activities of
the mountaineers of the thrilling West.

At that time the vast plains and the barren valleys were silvered over
with the ubiquitous sage through which crept lazily and aimlessly the
many unharnessed arroyo-making streams waiting only the appearance of
their master, man. Under his scientific, skilled, and economic
guidance these wild waters, lassoed, tamed, and set to work, taking
the place of clouds where there are none, were soon to cause the gray
garden of nature to become goldened by the well-nigh illimitable acres
of grain and other home-making products.

The West has an abundant variety of life of a sort most intensely
human. Life, always so earnest in Anglo-Saxon lands, seems to have
accentuated individuality here in a wondrous and contagious degree.

These few stories, culled from the repertoire of an active life of
more than thirty years, are samples of personal experiences, and are
taken almost at random from mining camp, frontier town and