These eight stories are made from our Western Frontier as it was in a past as near as yesterday and almost as by-gone as the Revolution; so swiftly do we proceed. They belong to each other in a kinship of life and manners, and a little through the nearer tie of having here and there a character in common. Thus they resemble faintly the separate parts of a whole, and gain, perhaps, something of the invaluable weight of length; and they have been received by my closest friends with suspicion. ...When our national life, our own soil, is so rich in adventures to record, what need is there for one to call upon his invention save to draw, if he can, characters who shall fit these strange and dramatic scenes? One cannot improve upon such realities. If this fiction is at all faithful to the truth from which it springs, let the thanks be given to the patience and boundless hospitality of the Army friends and other friends across the Missouri who have housed my body and instructed my mind. And if the stories entertain the ignorant without grieving the judicious I am content. (Summary from Author's Preface)
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Chapters
- Chapter 1
00 Author's Preface
09:12 - Chapter 2
01 Little Big Horn Medicine, part 1
37:06 - Chapter 3
02 Little Big Horn Medicine, part 2
32:24 - Chapter 4
03 Specimen Jones
55:59 - Chapter 5
04 The Serenade At Siskiyou
35:31 - Chapter 6
05 The General's Bluff, part 1
32:07 - Chapter 7
06 The General's Bluff, part 2
33:08 - Chapter 8
07 Salvation Gap
32:29 - Chapter 9
08 The Second Missouri Compromise, part 1
26:15 - Chapter 10
09 The Second Missouri Compromise, part 2
30:55 - Chapter 11
10 La Tinaja Bonita, part 1
46:46 - Chapter 12
11 La Tinaja Bonita, part 2
1:01:39 - Chapter 13
12 A Pilgrim On The Gila, part 1
47:23 - Chapter 14
13 A Pilgrim On The Gila, part 2
57:39 - Chapter 15
14 A Pilgrim On The Gila, part 3
39:23