told), sometimes at the rate of 48,000 a year. Our brothers who left
home yesterday--our hearts cannot but follow them. With these pages
Ralph Conner enables our eyes and our minds to follow, too; nor do I
think there is any one who shall read this book and not find also that
his conscience is quickened. There is a warfare appointed unto man upon
earth, and its struggles are nowhere more intense, nor the victories of
the strong, nor the succors brought to the fallen, more heroic, than on
the fields described in this volume.

GEORGE ADAM SMITH.



BLACK ROCK


The story of the book is true, and chief of the failures in the making
of the book is this, that it is not all the truth. The light is not
bright enough, the shadow is not black enough to give a true picture of
that bit of Western life of which the writer was some small part. The
men of the book are still there in the mines and lumber camps of the
mountains, fighting out that eternal fight for manhood, strong, clean,
God-conquered. And, when the west winds blow, to the open ear the sounds
of battle come, telling the fortunes of the fight.

Because a man's life is all he has, and because the only hope of the
brave young West lies in its men, this story is told. It may be that the
tragic pity of a broken life may move some to pray, and that that divine
power there is in a single brave heart to summon forth hope and courage
may move some to fight. If so, the tale is not told in vain.