hiking westward is really a chapter taken out of the lives of two wide-awake american boys who go west to make a home for their mother. although ignorant of the conditions of frontier life, phil and ted porter meet them manfully. they face their difficulties with a smile, work like trojans on their quarter section and through the love which they bear their mother, as shown in their every act, they win the respect of the kind-hearted, but rough settlers: people who do things: to whom setbacks and difficulties are daily occurrences. success crowned their efforts, developing a sturdy self-reliance and an ingenuity in surmounting the many obstacles which confronted them.

originally this story appeared under the title of “the young homesteaders”, by j. w. lincoln—my pen name, but the edition was quickly withdrawn and now, over my own name and with corrections and revisions, i desire to place it in the hands of all the boys i can as a true picture of early pioneer days.

roger w. conant.