236 A Century of Science 



hundred miles, from Boston to the plains of Ne- 

 braska. Parkman had become an adept in wood- 

 craft and a dead shot with the rifle, and could do 

 such things with horses, tame or wild, as civilized 

 people never see done except in a circus. There 

 was little doubt as to his ability to win the respect 

 of Indians by outshining them in such deeds as 

 they could appreciate. Early in 1846 he started 

 for the wilderness with Mr. Quincy Shaw. A pas- 

 sage from the preface to the fourth edition of 

 " The Oregon Trail," published in 1872, will here 

 be of interest : 



" I remember, as we rode by the foot of Pike's 

 Peak, when for a fortnight we met no face of man, 

 my companion remarked, in a tone anything but 

 complacent, that a time would come when those 

 plains would be a grazing country, the buffalo give 

 place to tame cattle, houses be scattered along the 

 watercourses, and wolves, bears, and Indians be 

 numbered among the things that were. We con- 

 doled with each other on so melancholy a prospect, 

 but with little thought what the future had in store. 

 We knew that there was more or less gold in the 

 seams of those untrodden mountains ; but we did 

 not foresee that it would build cities in the West, 

 and plant hotels and gambling houses among the 

 haunts of the grizzly bear. We knew that a few 



