BY
GEORGE BOOTH.
REPRINTED FROM THE
International Review for July, 1880.
NEW YORK:
A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY.
Copyright, 1880,
By A. S. Barnes and Company.
What do we mean by the frontier? Andwhat, by frontier folk? The terms came intovogue when tolerably well-defined lines markedthe onset of civilization at the far West, and allbeyond was wilderness. Yet to-day, with settlementsscattered over all the Territories, the phraseloses none of its significance. It still has a geographicalimport, and another, deeper than thegeographical, suggesting a peculiar civilization anda certain characteristic mode of life. It does notbring to mind those prosperous colonies whoselands, surveyed, secured by good legal titles, andfreed from danger of savage inroads, have a permanentpopulation busily engaged in founding homes.It takes us rather to the boundaries of the Indianreservations, along which scattered camps and settlementsof white men are fringed; to lands which,though legally open for settlement, are constantlymenaced by Indians; to those strange, shifting[Pg 4]communities which sometimes, like Jonah's gourd,spring up in a night only to wither away in a day.
It is the purpose of this paper to present a sketchof the life and people of this frontier region as thewriter has become familiar with them, depicting thetypes and manners of mankind, and leaving for moreprofound narrators the matters of statistical detail.
Social estimation and intercourse on the frontierare based upon a very short acquaintance. A largeand catholic charity presumes every man to be thatwhich he desires to appear. To pry into the secrethistory of his former life, to pass hostile criticismson it even when known to be discreditable, is notconsidered a public-spirited act; for those turbulentenergies or uncontrolled passions which drove himout of eastern communities may prove of great serviceto that new country to which he has come.The first element of success in a frontier settlementis that a sufficient number of nomads shouldbe willing to sustain each other in the belief that"this spot is to be a city and a centre." The newsthat a considerable group is already gathered onany such foreordained and favored spot bringsothers; nor do the arrivals cease until a daycomes when it is bruited abroad that some ofthe "first citizens" have revised their views of itsglorious destiny, and have left it for a new Eden.The sojourner in such regions—he cannot becalled an inhabitant—lives in expectation of the[Pg 5]coming settler who will pay him cash for his"claim"; or else perhaps he devotes himself todiscovering a lode or a placer, which, if disposedof, may put him in funds for a year's spree; oragain he may be a trapper, perpetually shifting hisplace as the peltry grows scarce. These indicatethe respectable callings or expectancies of the solidmen in frontier life; but they are surrounded by alarger throng of men, who hang about settlementswith the possible hope of an honest El Dorado, butwho in the meantime, and until this shall come,take to the surreptitious borrowing of horses withoutleave, or to the industries of the faro-table, orto the "road agency," by which phrase is signifiedthe unlawful collection of a highway toll amounting