The Pioneer Dead

Improvement Era Vol. XXVII JULY, 1924 No. 9 The Pioneer Dead Gone are the old trails your covered wagons wore; Gone are the old songs — gone for evermore — Gone to cheer you 'long the way to God's inviting shore. Dark are the camp fires beside the willowed streams; Sad now the waters that brought you peace — and dreams, And madly past your unmarked dead the locomotive screams. The plains no longer whisper with the rustle of the grass; No longer halt the bull teams in stolid, sweating mass, To let the migrant buffalo in scornful glory pass. Gone trie wily traders who watched your trains askance; Gone the crouching warriors who challenged your advance, And plotted your extinction in savage song and dance. Gone — 'tis gone, the old West — with your singing and your tears, Over the blue horizon, into the gulch of years — Yet oft I see you trailing still among the starlit spheres. For even in heaven, I fancy, you have little time to rest, With paths to be blazed and charted into God's eternal West — For God reserves the best gifts for the men who serve him best. Frank C. Steele Lethbridge, Alta, Canada Entered at the Post Office, Salt Lake City, Utah, as second class matter. Ac- ceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July Z, 1918, $2 per annum. Address Room 406 Church Office Building, Salt Lake City, Utah.