"Ten or twelve horses to a wagon stretching themselves out in long muscular tension"

The present work was initially illustrated in Carrie Adell Strahorn's 1911 book entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage in which Strahorn chronicles the experience of traveling West by covered wagon. She writes, "In the pages of this volume, I have endeavored to give a picture of the Old West, to tell of the efforts which a Westward marching population made to establish homes on the border line of civilization and beyond, enduring hardships and privations with the courage of heroes. I have tried to restore the picturesque condition of what was the great homeless frontier of our Western country, and to trace its development." (Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, New York, 1911, p. v) The text is accompanied by 350 illustrations by Russell, including the present work, which expertly captures the movement and tension of pulling the wagon through the Idaho terrain.