Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/9



In writing this preface I do so with the full knowledge that the preface of a book is rarely read, comparatively speaking, but I shall write this one just the same.

In writing this work the author has made no attempt at romance, or a great literary production, but has narrated in his own plain, blunt way, the incidents of his life as they actually occurred.

There have been so many books put upon the market, purporting to be the lives of noted frontirsmen which are only fiction, that I am moved to ask the reader to consider well before condemning this book as such. The author starts out with the most notable events of his boyhood days, among them his troubles with an old negro virago, wherein he gets his revenge by throwing a nest of lively hornets under her feet. Then come his flight and a trip, to St. Louis, hundreds of miles on foot, his accidental meeting with that most eminent man of his class, Kit Carson, who takes the lad into his care and treats him as a kind father would a son. He then proceeds to give a minute description of his first trip on the plains, where he meets and associates with such noted planismen as Gen. John Charles Fremont, James Beckwith, Jim Bridger and others, and gives incidents of his association with them in scouting, trapping, hunting big game, Indian fighting, etc.

The author also gives brief sketches of the springing