Xll PREFACE. 



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 been 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, May, 1872. 



