Читать книгу They of the High Trails - Garland Hamlin - Страница 4

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Many changes have swept over the mountain West since twenty years ago, but romance still clings to the high country. The Grub-Staker, hammer in hand, still pecking at the float, wanders the hills with hopeful patience, walking the perilous ledges of the cliffs in endless search of gold.

The Cow-Boss, reckless rear-guard of his kind, still urges his watch-eyed bronco across the roaring streams, or holds his milling herd in the high parks, but the Remittance Man, wayward son from across the seas, is gone. Roused to manhood by his country's call, he has joined the ranks of those who fight to save the shores of his ancestral isle.

The Prospector still pushes his small pack-mule through the snow of glacial passes, seeking the unexplored, and therefore more alluring, mountain ranges.

The Lonesome Man still seeks forgetfulness of crime in the solitude, building his cabin in the shadow of great peaks.

The Trail-Tramp, mounted wanderer, horseman of the restless heart, still rides from place to place, contemptuous of gold, carrying in his folded blanket all the vanishing traditions of the wild.

The Fugitive still seeks sanctuary in the green timber—finding the storms of the granite peaks less to be feared than the fury of the law.

The Leaser—the tenderfoot hay-roller from the prairies—still tries his luck in some abandoned tunnel, sternly toiling for his faithful sweetheart in the low country; and

The Forest Ranger, hardy son of the pioneers, representing the finer social order of the future, rides his lonely woodland trail, guarding with single-hearted devotion our splendid communal heritage of mine and stream.

On the High Trail, Spring, 1916.