Xll PEEFACE. 



scientific matter, which will be found embodied in 

 chapters twenty-third and twenty-fourth. 



The illustrations of men and brutes in this work 

 are studies from life. Whenever it was possible, 

 we had photographs taken. 



The plains, it must be said, are a tract with 

 which Romance has had much more to do than 

 History. Red men, brave and chivalrous, and un- 

 natural buffalo, with the habits of lions, exist only 

 in imagination. In these pages, my earnest en- 

 deavor, when dealing with actualities, has^een to 

 "hold the mirror up to Nature," and to describe 

 men, manners, and things as they are in real life 

 upon the frontiers, and beyond, to-day. 



W. E. W. 



ToPEKA, Kansas, 3Iay, 1872. 



