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Rh movement is easily accounted for. He did not take his trip of roughing it to Fort Laramie and the Black Hills, in 1846, to see the Oregon pioneers. His plans to write the history of the new France in America tended to narrow his interest strictly to aspects of Indian life as they were with the Indian in his original state. He was concerned solely during his life on the plains to get that insight into Indian character and customs that he might interpret the records of the relations of the French with them, and give his narrative in his great life work truth, life, and color. Had he been inclined to associate himself with the westward moving trains, and to enter into their life and thought, his "Oregon Trail" would naturally have been a final characterization of the migrations up to the stage they had assumed at that time. There are, however, indications in some of his references to the pioneers that their necessarily deshabille condition while en route, and the astounding and almost reckless character of their undertaking were by him set in contrast with the steady comfortable ways of the New England folk from which he hailed and the Oregonians correspondingly disparaged. In this he would be bringing a pioneer phase of civilization into comparison with a more finished form. The wayfaring pioneers were still marking out wider and more natural limits for the national home, while the New Englanders were advancing the arts of life on the original nucleus of national territory. But who can say to which the nation in its destiny owes the more?

Two years ago there appeared a book of five hundred and twenty-nine pages written by Colonels Henry Inman and William F. Cody, bearing the title, "The Great Salt Lake Trail." In its preface there is to be found the following comment on its title: "Over this historical highway the Mormons made their lonely hegira. * * *