Southwest High School - Roundup Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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BLAZING Tl-IE. TRAIL BY BARBARA GENUIT During the spring of 1849 some 50,000 people streamed forth from the carnival-spirited town of Independence, Missouri, not realizing the diflicult obstacles each new hour would bring before they reached their goal- gold. Youth was in the saddle, hope blossomed like the wild flowers of the prairie, green with spring. Each close of day saw the long marching army of wagons change into an unbroken line of flickering campfires from the Missouri River to the Sierra N evadas. Each party soon learned that a successful journey depended upon experienced and competent leadership with the authority to enforce j ustice. The Indian was a constant menace, even though generally the object of his attack was merely the theft of horses. The imminent danger of a genuine massacre, more than any other one thing, helped to unify the trains. As grass became more scarce and precious grain supplies lower, dread cholera broke out, creeping up the valley from the stricken city of New Orleans. Its story was much the same each time: a few hours of violent illness and a hasty mound at the side of the trail, a grave often dug up by wolves after the party had hurried on. Deaths by aggravating scurvy and raging fever, added to those by cholera, brought the total to 5000 in the year '49. But the terrible part of the journey began with the entrance into the great deserts, like those of the Humbolt or Carson Sinks. Cattle weakened and horses failed. Heat and sand tortured dry bodies as maddening mirages of lakes and streams, leading men many miles off the path, tortured minds. When the desert had so sapped their strength, then came the Sinks themselves where rivers withered and vanished into burning sand. In the long white fields of alkali with drifts of ashes across them, so soft, the cattle sank halfway to their bellies, the dust rose chokingly, and the sun was strong and fierce. At every stop some animal fell in the traces and had to be cut out of the yoke. If a wagon came to a complete halt, it was abandoned. When at last they reached the rivers, they found them almost impossible to ford. In the distance the high, forbidding ramparts of the Sierra Nevadas reared themselves. But beyond lay the green valley of the Sacramento and their gold. Today, modern forty-niners continue to retrace proved trails and to blaze new ones. Many are the goals of these ever-increasing caravans and, as in all history, along these trails the best, as well as the worst, is revealed under the pressure of hardship: heroism, faithfulness, Godliness, tenacity, knowledge, love-truly all golden. Youth will continue to lead the procession. What obstacles along the great adventure of life and learning dare to deter them? What path beckons toward a more worthy gold than that of these Trail Blazers? For with Christopher Marlowe truly we may exclaim: Oh, what a world of profit and delight, Of power, of honor, and omnipotence, Is promis'd the studious artisan! Sixteen

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