Fraser's rider sat his pony at the entrance to the Court of Palms, and "it may be doubted if the Exposition produced a more popular bit of sculpture" (Todd). It caught "the eye, the understanding, and the sympathy" at once. It was also one of the official photographer's best sellers. The spear points downward, the rider sags, and the wind-blown pony braces at what the title implies is the continent's last edge.
Its message was of its time. Todd read it as "the final chapter in the tragedy of a supplanted race," and the exposition's sculpture program consciously paired it with Borglum's hopeful Pioneer before the matching Court of Flowers. Modern scholars note that the fair presented Native Americans as noble but doomed, even while Native people worked at, performed in and visited the exposition.
John Barry recorded a telling moment. A tall Westerner in front of the statue told his wife that the rider looked exactly like "a Blackfoot after a couple of days' tusselling with the wind and the rain in the mountains," and concluded that "the man that made that statue knew his business."
