Saddles East

Horseback Over the Old Oregon Trail

Saddles East: Horseback Over the Old Oregon Trail, a book by the WWI ‘fighting chaplain,’ John W. Beard, was first published in 1949. It is an informal narrative of a horseback ride in modern times over the famous covered-wagon route of the pioneers. For countless ages the Red Man knew this trail. In the fullness of time the trapper, the mountain man, the fur trader found it and lived their life among its reaches. The seeker after gold hastened over it. The priest with the cross and the missionary with his Bible made it beautiful with their message of life and peace. The hardy pioneer and he eager emigrant traveled it into the land of their dreams. The pony express rider flashed his phantom; the Overland Stage rumbled by. The soldier built his forts. Who knows even a little of the story of the old trail and does not wish to know it all? Who has ever traveled over any part of the old trail and does not long to travel over all of it, even to its very end? Who has ever heard the story of wagons west, who does not want to take Saddles East and ride into the sunrise, as the pioneers rode into the sunset?