The Author takes this opportunity to thank the old friends, and the new ones, who assisted him in so many ways, upon his travels. Especially, he makes his affectionate acknowledgment to his wise and kindly companion, the Illustrator, whose admirable drawings are far from being his only contribution to this volume.

—J. S.
New York,
October, 1914.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
STEPPING WESTWARD
ISTEPPING WESTWARD[3]
IIBIFURCATED BUFFALO[21]
IIICLEVELAND CHARACTERISTICS[40]
IVMORE CLEVELAND CHARACTERISTICS[48]
MICHIGAN MEANDERINGS
VDETROIT THE DYNAMIC[65]
VIAUTOMOBILES AND ART[77]
VIITHE MÆCENAS OF THE MOTOR[91]
VIIITHE CURIOUS CITY OF BATTLE CREEK[105]
IXKALAMAZOO[121]
XGRAND RAPIDS THE "ELECT"[127]
CHICAGO
XIA MIDDLE-WESTERN MIRACLE[139]
XIIFIELD'S AND THE "TRIBUNE"[150]
XIIITHE STOCKYARDS[164]
XIVTHE HONORABLE HINKY DINK[173]
XVAN OLYMPIAN PLAN[181]
XVILOOKING BACKWARD[187]
"IN MIZZOURA"
XVIISOMNOLENT ST. LOUIS[201]
XVIIITHE FINER SIDE[221]
XIXHANNIBAL AND MARK TWAIN[237]
XXPIKE AND POKER[253]
XXIOLD RIVER DAYS[267]
THE BEGINNING OF THE WEST
XXIIKANSAS CITY[275]
XXIIIODDS AND ENDS[291]
XXIVCOLONEL NELSON'S "STAR"[302]
XXVKEEPING A PROMISE[313]
XXVITHE TAME LION[323]
XXVIIKANSAS JOURNALISM[337]
XXVIIIA COLLEGE TOWN[345]
XXIXMONOTONY[365]
THE MOUNTAINS AND THE COAST
XXXUNDER PIKE'S PEAK[379]
XXXIHITTING A HIGH SPOT[400]
XXXIICOLORADO SPRINGS[417]
XXXIIICRIPPLE CREEK[434]
XXXIVTHE MORMON CAPITAL[439]
XXXVTHE SMITHS[454]
XXXVIPASSING PICTURES[465]
XXXVIISAN FRANCISCO[474]
XXXVIII"BEFORE THE FIRE"[488]
XXXIXAN EXPOSITION AND A "BOOSTER"[498]
XLNEW YORK AGAIN[507]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The St. Francis at tea-time.—With her hotels San Francisco is New
York, but with her people she is San Francisco—which comes
near being the apotheosis of praise. Frontispiece		FACING
PAGE
I was moving about my room, my hands full of hairbrushes and toothbrushes
and clothesbrushes and shaving brushes; my head full of
railroad trains, and hills, and plains, and valleys		[5]
A dusky redcap took my baggage[12]
What scenes these black, pathetic people had passed through—were
passing through! Why did they not look up in wonderment?.		[17]
We made believe we wanted to go out and smoke. And as we left
our seats she made believe she didn't know that we were going.		[23]
The gentleman who favored linen mesh was a fat, prosperous-looking
person, whose gold-rimmed spectacles reflected flying lights
from out of doors		[26]
In a few hours there was enough shame around us to have lasted all
the reformers and muckrakers I know a whole month		[32]
My companion and I made excuses to go downstairs and wash our
hands in the public washroom, just for the pleasure of doing so
without fear of being attacked by a swarthy brigand with a brush		[35]
I was prepared to take the field against all comers, not only in favor
of simplicity, but in favor of anything and everything which was
favored by my hostess		[38]
Chamber of Commerce representatives were with us all the first day
and until we went to our rooms, late at night		[43]
It is an Elizabethan building, with a heavy timbered front, suggesting
some ancient, hospitable, London coffee house where wits of
old were used to meet		[46]
In this charming, homelike old building, with its grandfather's clock,
its Windsor chairs, and its open wood fires, a visitor finds it hard
to realize that he is in the "west"		[53]
Down by the docks we saw gigantic, strange machines, expressive of
Cleveland's lake commerce—machines for loading and unloading
ships in the space of a few hours		[60]
In midstream passes a continual parade of freighters ... and in
their swell you may see, teetering, all kinds of craft, from proud
white yachts to canoes		[71]
The automobile has not only changed Detroit from a quiet old town
into a rich, active city, but upon the drowsy romance of the old
days it has superimposed the romance of modern business		[74]
Of course there was order in that place, of course there was system—relentless
system—terrible "efficiency"—but to my mind it expressed
but one thing, and that thing was delirium		[97]
Never, since then, have I heard men jeering over women as they look
in dishabille, without wondering if those same men have ever seen
themselves clearly in the mirrored washroom of a sleeping car		[112]
"Can that stuff," admonished Miss Buck in her easy, offhand manner[117]
She was saying to herself (and, unconsciously, to us, through the
window): "If I had played that hand, I never should have done
it that way!"		[124]
Rodin's "Thinker"[145]
Chicago's skyline from the docks.... A city which rebuilt itself after
the fire; in the next decade doubled its size; and now has a population
of two million, plus a city of about the size of San Francisco		[160]
Two rabbis, old bearded men, performed the rites with long, slim,
shiny blades		[177]
As I stood there, studying the temperament of pigs, I saw the butcher
looking up at me.... I have never seen such eyes		[192]
The bold front of Michigan Avenue along Grant Park ... great
buildings wreathed in whirling smoke and that allegory of infinity
which confronts one who looks eastward		[196]
The dilapidation of the quarter has continued steadily from Dickens's
day to this, and the beauty now to be discovered there is that of
decay and ruin		[205]
The three used bridges which cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis
are privately controlled toll bridges		[212]
The skins are handled in the raw state ... with the result that the
floor of the exchange is made slippery by animal fats, and that the
olfactory organs encounter smells not to be matched in any zoo		[221]
St. Louis needs to be taken by the hand and led around to some municipal-improvement
tailor, some civic haberdasher		[225]
We came upon the "Mark Twain House."... And to think that,
wretched as this place was, the Clemens family were forced to
leave it for a time because they were too poor to live there		[240]
At one side is an alley running back to the house of Huckleberry Finn,
and in that alley stood the historic fence which young Sam
Clemens cajoled the other boys into whitewashing for him		[244]
Never outside of Brittany and Normandy have I seen roads so full of
animals as those of Pike County		[253]
Mr. Roberts is a wonder—nothing less. There's a book in him, and
I hope that somebody will write it, for I should like to read that
book		[268]
Looking down from Kersey Coates Drive, one sees ... the appalling
web of railroad tracks, crammed with freight cars, which seen
through a softening haze of smoke, resemble a relief map—strange,
vast and pictorial		[289]
Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own the "Star," ...
he would be a "character."... I have called him a volcano;
he is more like one than any other man I have ever met		[304]
Mr. Fish informed me that the waters of Excelsior Springs resemble
the waters of Homburg, the favorite watering place of the late
King Edward—or, rather, I think he put it the other way round		[322]
We strolled in the direction of the old house, that house of tragedy in
which the family lived in the troublous times.... It was there
that the Pinkertons threw the bomb		[328]
It was Frank James.... He looks more like a prosperous farmer or
the president of a rural bank than like a bandit. In his manner
there is a strong note of the showman		[335]
The campus seems to have "just growed."... Nevertheless, there is
a sort of homely charm about the place, with its unimposing, helter-skelter
piles of brick and stone		[353]
Even at sea the great bowl of the sky had never looked to me so vast[368]
The little towns of western Kansas are far apart and have, like the
surrounding scenery, an air of sadness and desolation		[373]
In the lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel we saw several old fellows,
sitting about, looking neither prosperous nor busy, but always
talking mines. A kind word, or even a pleasant glance, is enough
to set them off		[380]
"Ain't Nature wonderful!"[405]
I was by this time very definitely aware that I had my fill of winter
motoring in the mountains. The mere reluctance I felt as we began
to climb had now developed into a passionate desire to desist		[412]
The homes of Colorado Springs really explain the place and the society
is as cosmopolitan as the architecture		[417]
On the road to Cripple Creek we were always turning, always turning
upward		[432]
We were invited to meet the President of the Mormon Church and
some members of his family at the Beehive House, his official
residence		[452]
The Lion House—a large adobe building in which formerly resided
the rank and file of Brigham Young's wives		[461]
The Cliff House has a Sorrento setting and hectic turkey-trotting
nights		[468]
The Salt-water pool, Olympic Club, San Francisco[477]
The switchboard of the Chinatown telephone exchange is set in a
shrine and the operators are dressed in Chinese silks		[496]
We believed we had encountered every kind of "booster" that creeps,
crawls, walks, crows, cries, bellows, barks or brays, but it remained
for the Exposition to show us a new specimen		[504]
New York—Everyone is in a hurry. Everyone is dodging everyone
else. Everyone is trying to keep his knees from being knocked
by swift-passing suitcases		[513]