Books: Pioneer People

FARTHEST REACH: OREGON AND WASHINGTON—Nancy Wilson Ross—Knopf ($3.50).

Pioneers on Puget Sound ate so many clams "their stomachs rose and fell with the tides." They were great individualists. There was Hazard Stevens, son of the first Governor. At twelve he left home to make a treaty with the Gros Ventre Indians. He was the first white man to climb Mount Rainier.

There was Asahel Bush, Oregon's great banker (TIME, April 22, 1940). When he was 89 he lifted himself from his deathbed, asked "Is everything all right?" and, upon being told it was, said,...