building of the continent Nature fashioned well the scenery for the
great human story that was to be enacted here in the fullness of years.
She built her stage on a large scale, taking no account of miles; for
the coming actors were to be big men, mighty travelers, intrepid
fighters, laughers at time and space. Plains limited only by the rim of
sky; mountains severe, huge, tragic as fate; deserts for the trying of
strong spirits; grotesque volcanic lands--dead, utterly
ultra-human--where athletic souls might struggle with despair; impetuous
streams with their rapids terrible as Scylla, where men might go down
fighting: thus Nature built the stage and set the scenes. And that the
arrangements might be complete, she left a vast tract unfinished, where
still the building of the world goes on--a place of awe in which to feel
the mighty Doer of Things at work. Indeed, a setting vast and weird
enough for the coming epic. And as the essence of all story is struggle,
tribes of wild fighting men grew up in the land to oppose the coming
masters; and over the limitless wastes swept the blizzards.

I remember when I first read the words of Vergil beginning _Ubi tot
Simois_, "where the Simois rolls along so many shields and helmets and
strong bodies of brave men snatched beneath its floods." The far-seeing
sadness of the lines thrilled me; for it was not of the little stream of
the _Æneid_ that I thought while the Latin professor quizzed me as to
constructions, but of that great river of my own epic country--the
Missouri. Was I unfair to old Vergil, think you? As for me, I think I
flattered him a bit! And in this modern application, the ancient lines
ring true. For the Missouri from Great Falls to its mouth is one long
grave of men and boats. And such men!

It is a time-honored habit to look back through the ages for the epic
things. Modern affairs seem a bit commonplace to some of us. A horde of