--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Unknown collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 27 number: 9 published: 1924-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Unknown, “The Pioneer Dead,” *Improvement Era 27, no. 9 (July 1924)*: 801–801." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2709unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2709unse start_page: 801 end_page: 801 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1924-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2709unse publication_year: 1924 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1924, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # 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.