settlement,
public and private life.

As a minister the writer has had wide and varied opportunities in all
the Northwest, but more especially in Utah, Oregon, and Idaho. Many a
man much more modest has far excelled him in life experiences, but
some of them have never told.

This little handful of goldenrod is affectionately dedicated to them
of the Trails.

THE AUTHOR.

GOD'S MINISTER

_Dedicated to the Mountain Ministers_

As terrace upon terrace
Rise the mountains o'er the humbler hills
And stretch away to dizzy heights
To meet heaven's own pure blue;
From thence to steal those soft and filmy clouds
With which to wrap their heads and shoulders--
Bare of other cloak--
Transforming them to rains and snows
To bless this elsewise desert world:

So, he who stands God's minister 'mong men,
High reaches out above all earthly things
And comes in contact with the thoughts of God;
Conveys them down in blessings to mankind--
Richest of blessings,
Holiest fruit of heaven--
Plucked fresh from off the Tree of Life
That springs hard by the Lamb's white throne,
And bears the plenteous leaves which grow
To heal the wounded nations.

THE WESTERN TRAIL

And step by step since time began
I see the steady gain of man.
--Whittier.

THE WESTERN TRAIL

"An overland highway to the Western sea" was the thought variously
expressed by many men in both public and private life among the
French, English, and Americans from very early times. In 1659 Pierre
Radisson and a companion, by way of the Great Lakes, Fox, and
"Ouisconsing" Rivers, discovered the "east fork" of the "Great River"
and crossed to the "west fork," up which they went into what is now
the Dakotas, only to find it going still "interminably westward."

In 1766 Carver, an Englishman, went by the same route up the "east
fork" to Saint Anthony Falls; thence he traveled to Canada, to learn
from the Assiniboin Indians the existence of the "Shining Mountains"
and that beyond them was the "Oregan," which went to the salt sea.

As early as 1783 Thomas Jefferson wrote to