u go West "colonist," you can go to the
backbone of the Rockies for a good deal less than thirty dollars. Now
comes the crucial point! If you land in a Western city and stay at a
good hotel, expenses are going to out-sprint Europe; and you will not
see any more of the West than if you had gone to Europe. Choose your
holiday stamping ground, Sundance Canyon, South Dakota; or the New
Glacier Park; or the Pecos, New Mexico; or the White Mountains, Arizona;
or the Indian Pueblo towns of the Southwest; or the White Rock Canyon of
the Rio Grande, where the most important of the wonderful prehistoric
remains exist; and you can stay at a ranch house where food and
cleanliness will be quite as good as at the Waldorf for from $1.50 to $2
a day.

[Illustration: In the bright Arizona sunshine before their little square
adobe houses Indian women are fashioning pottery into curious shapes]
You can usually find the name of the ranch house by inquiries from the
station agent where you get off. The ranch house may be of adobe and
look squatty; but remember that adobe squattiness is the best protection
against wind and heat; and inside, you will find hot and cold water,
bathroom, and meals equal to the best hotels in Chicago and New York. In
New York or Chicago, that amount would afford you mighty chancy fare and
only a back hall room. I know of hundreds of such ranch houses all along
the backbone of the Rockies.

Next comes the matter of horses and rigs. If you stay at one of the big
hotels, you will pay from $5 to $10 a day for a rig, and $20 for a
motor. Out at the ranch house, you can rent team, driver and double rig
at $4; or a pony at $20 for a month, or buy a burro outright for from $5
to $10. Even if the burro takes a prize for ugliness, remember he also
takes a prize for sure-footedness; and he doesn't take a prize for
bucking, which the broncho often does. Figure up now the cost of a
month's holiday; and I repeat--it will cost you less than staying at
home. But if this total is still too high, there are ways of reducing
the expense by half. Take your own tent; and $20 will not exceed "the
grub box" contents for a month. Or all through the Rockies are deserted
shacks, mining and lumber shanties, herders' cabins, horse camps. You
can quarter yourself in one of these for nothing; and the sole expense
will be "the grub box;" and my tin trunk for camp cooking has never cost
me more than $50 a month for four people. Or best and most