The blazed trail is written by Stewart Edward White and the story begins when the American Pioneer is described as resourceful, self-reliant, and bold, adapting himself with fluidity to diverse circumstances and conditions. He satisfies his needs directly from the earth, substituting rawhide for leather, buckskin for cloth, and venison for canned tomatoes. We feel that his steps are planted on solid earth, for civilizations may crumble without disturbing him. He has something about him that other men do not possess, a frank clearness of the eye and an air of muscular well-being. Instead of pleasure, he seeks orgies. He turns to reckless drinking, brawling, and partying excesses. He has a sweet but also awful disposition. The jobber was paid as the work was completed, rather than being paid proportionally by stage of the process. Radway's task was not merely to level out and ballast the six feet of a roadbed, but to cut a way for five miles through the unbroken wilderness.
Stewart Edward White was an American author, novelist, and spiritualist who lived from 12 March 1873 until September 18, 1946. He was Gilbert White's brother, a well-known muralist. White, the son of Mary E. (Daniel) and lumberjack Thomas Stewart White, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan after graduating from Grand Rapids High School (B.A., 1895; M.A., 1903). He wrote adventure and travel-related fiction and non-fiction from around 1900 to roughly 1922, with a focus on natural history and outdoor living. Beginning in 1922, he and his wife Elizabeth "Betty" Grant White published a number of publications they claimed to have received through mediumship. Additionally, they wrote about their excursions throughout the state of California. White passed away at the age of 73 in Hillsborough, California. At a period when America was losing its wildness, White's writings were well-liked. He was an astute observer of both natural and human beauty, and he could express them simply. He added witty and entertaining information about cabin-building, paddling, logging, gold-searching, and weapons, as well as fishing and hunting, whether he was writing camping journals or Westerns, based on his own experience.
