CHAPTER I.The Frontier In History.
The frontier! There is no word in the English language more stirring, more intimate, or more beloved.

It has in it all the elan of the old French phrase, En avant! It carries all of the old Saxon command, Forward!! It means all that America ever meant.

It means the old hope of a real personal liberty, and yet a real human advance in character and achievement.

To a genuine American it is the dearest word in all the world.
What is, or was, the frontier?
Where was it?
Under what stars did it lie?
Because, as the vague Iliads of ancient heroes or the nebulous records of the savage gentlemen of the Middle Ages make small specific impingement on our consciousness today, so also even now begin the tales of our own old frontier to assume a haziness, an unreality, which makes them seem less history than folklore.

Now the truth is that the American frontier of history has many a local habitation and many a name.