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Show . " THE LURE OF THE WEST. ; . ; - Vague ideas held by children in the east thirty ! or forty years ago as to the nature of the country 4" ',. called "the west" have" been dissipated largely by . ; the better teaching of the geography of our own ! , ' country. Ti e fertile prairies and hills and vallevs ! making up the wonderful states of the Dakota-:, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, some thirty years ago were peopled in the ; imaginations of the children of the east by Indians, buffalo hunters, cowboys and vast roving herds of , cattle. When those children got a little older, they emigrated to those new. states and helped to de- ' velop them, helped to build the cities and towns i l i ii !, ujiu iu jjiaaij wm icuju pmuuL ii vf. vnu now me ; country beyond the great continental divide is ! looked upon with much the same mysterious awe . as were the prairie states, and the railroads which ' . have been built throughout this vast region annual ly bring 'thousands of people, some looking for homes, some for investment opportunities, and Seine merely to satisfy their natural curiosity. Those who take up their residence in the west p.nd stay for a year become permanent residents. Perhaps they strike it rich in a short time and decide de-cide to return again to the east to live but if 60 they always come back. The lure of the west is upon them; it cannot be resisted; it is as insistent in its call as ever siren music was to distracted , mariner. The lure of the west whp knows what it is ? (' A man whose business calls him to make two or three visits to the east every year tells us that he never feels just right after he crosses the Missouri Mis-souri river; there is something wrong with him . until he comes back and he has left the Missouri behind him. The lure of the west is upon him, as it is upon everybody else who comes here to live. Xobody knows what it is, except that it is strangely strange-ly compelling force which holds all who come into its presence holds them as everlastingly as the love of home binds them. Whether it is in the air or the soil the lure of the west is a stern reality ! 9 reality that none pf us would escape if we could. |