Introduction
LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season
of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion
James Quayle Burden—Jim Burden, as we still call him in the
West. He and I are old friends—we grew up together in the same Nebraska
town—and we had much to say to each other. While the train
flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and
bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the
observation car,