wboy were like the features of his daily
surroundings and occupation--they were intense, large, Homeric. Yet,
judged at his work, no higher type of employee ever existed, nor
one more dependable. He was the soul of honor in all the ways of his
calling. The very blue of the sky, bending evenly over all men alike,
seemed to symbolize his instinct for justice. Faithfulness and manliness
were his chief traits; his standard--to be a "square man."

Not all the open range will ever be farmed, but very much that was long
thought to be irreclaimable has gone under irrigation or is being more
or less successfully "dryfarmed." The man who brought water upon the
arid lands of the West changed the entire complexion of a vast country
and with it the industries of that country. Acres redeemed from the
desert and added to the realm of the American farmer were taken from the
realm of the American cowboy.

The West has changed. The curtain has dropped between us and its wild
and stirring scenes. The old days are gone. The house dog sits on the
hill where yesterday the coyote sang. There are fenced fields and in
them stand sleek round beasts, deep in crops such as their ancestors
never saw. In a little town nearby is the hurry and bustle of modern
life. This town is far out upon what was called the frontier, long after
the frontier has really gone. Guarding its ghost here stood a little
army post, once one of the pillars, now one of the monuments of the
West.

Out from the tiny settlement in the dusk of evening, always facing
toward where the sun is sinking, might be seen riding, not so long
ago, a figure we should know. He would thread the little lane among the
fences, following the guidance of hands other than his own, a thing he
would once have scorned to do. He would ride as lightly and as easily
as ever, sitting erect and jaunty in the saddle, his reins held high and
loose in the hand whose fingers turn up gracefully, his whole body free
yet firm in the saddle with the seat of the perfect horseman. At the
boom of the cannon, when the flag dropped fluttering down to sleep, he
would rise in his stirrups and wave his hat to the flag. Then, toward
the edge, out into the evening, he would ride on. The dust of his riding
would mingle with the dusk of night. We could not see which was the
one or the other. We could only hear the hoofbeats passing, boldly and
steadily still, but growing fainter, fainter, and more faint. *

* For pe