PREFACE. 



As I look back after many years spent on the plains, 

 mountains and rivers of the Northwest, the trail seems long 

 and full of dangers of every description. Many personal ac- 

 cidents, hazardous undertakings, conflicts with savages and 

 wild beasts in a strange land, loom up large as I recall my 

 past days. I can see the trail running through fifty years, 

 from childhood's day, and, in that time, the Great West has 

 undergone many changes. I have witnessed the extermina- 

 tion of the buffalo, the wild horse, the fan-tailed deer and the 

 wild pigeon. The elk, the moose, the caribou and the ante- 

 lope families are now reduced to a few scattering bands, oc- 

 cupying only the very wildest and most inaccessible places, 

 far from the haunts of man. I wonder what the next fifty 

 years will bring forth. Deer parks and game preserves will 

 no doubt be the order of the day. The youth will read of the 

 buffalo chase and of the wild Sioux and will earnestly wish 

 that he could see these strange, exciting phases of a life 

 which has even now passed away forever. 



It has been my lot to see many marvelous sights and my 

 fortune to be a part of not a few strange episodes. I have 

 seen millions of buffaloes extending in a mass as far as the 

 eye could see on plain and mountain. It would require 

 three days for these herds to pass a given point. The Sioux 

 Indians, the Cheyennes , the Crows, the Blackfoots, the 

 Bloods, the Flatheads and many other tribes have passed 

 away before my eyes. The wild scalp-dances are a thing of 

 the past, and the sun-dance, with its tortures as a test of en- 



