Capt. W. F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts: As Pilot to Emigrant and Government Trains, Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years Ago...

The kindly interest with which the public has received my first book, "Thirty-one Years on the Plains and in the Mountains," has tempted me into writing this second little volume, in which I have tried to portray that part of my earlier life which wa ... Read more

The kindly interest with which the public has received my first book, "Thirty-one Years on the Plains and in the Mountains," has tempted me into writing this second little volume, in which I have tried to portray that part of my earlier life which was spent in piloting emigrant and government trains across the Western Plains, when "Plains" meant wilderness, with nothing to encounter but wild animals, and wilder, hostile Indian tribes. When every step forward might have spelt disaster, and deadly danger was likely to lurk behind each bush or thicket that was passed. The tales put down here are tales of true occurrences,—not fiction. They are tales that were lived through by throbbing hearts of men and women, who were all bent upon the one, same purpose:—to plow onward, onward, through danger and death, till their goal, the "land of gold," was reached, and if the kind reader will receive them and judge them as such, the purpose of this little book will be amply and generously fulfilled. Less