imagination. We can, unfortunately, conjure up from their majestic
background no more romantic picture than that of some Pueblo Indian
wooing his dusky bride. Yet they are not without some reminiscences
of heroism; for valiant men, a half century ago, following the
westward moving star of empire, braved almost inconceivable hardships
in their shadow, when, after four thousand years, American pioneers
repeated the old, old story, begun upon the plains of Shinar, as the
"Sons of the East" went westward in their quest of fortune. How few
of us think of those unrecorded heroes now, as we cross this region
in luxurious cars! To most of us the dead, whose bones once whitened
many of these lonely plains, are nothing more than the last winter's
snowdrifts melted by the sun; yet how effectively the Saxon has
succeeded in his conquest of the continent we have continual evidence
as we glide swiftly, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through
glowing grain fields, prosperous cities, and states that rival
empires in size. Where formerly the Spanish conquerors, in their
fruitless search for the reputed Seven Cities glittering with gold,
endured privations and exhibited bravery which have hardly been
surpassed in the entire history of the world; and where, too, as if
it were but yesterday, the American Argonauts toiled painfully for
months through tribes of hostile Indians, across desert wastes and
over cloud-encompassed mountains, we find ourselves the inmates of a
rolling palace, propelled by one of Nature's tireless forces, and
feel at times in our swift flight as if we were the occupants of a
cushioned cannon-ball of glass. Even the crossing of one of the many
viaducts along our route is a reminder of how science has been
summoned to assist the invader in his audacious enterprise of
girdling a continent with steel.

[Illustration: AN ARIZONA CLOUD-EFFECT.]