CONTENTS

PAGE
Vital Pages in American History vii
Preface ix
The Unbroken Wild (1804) 1
From Lewis and Clark’s Journals
Jim Beckwourth’s Narrative (1824) 15
From “Autobiography of James P. Beckwourth”
The Pathfinder: In the High Rockies (1842), By John C. Frémont37
From Frémont’s Journal of the First Expedition
The Wilderness Hunter (1845), By J. B. Ruxton 56
From “Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains”
At Fort Laramie (1846), By Francis Parkman 72
From “The Oregon Trail”
Gold! Gold! Sutter’s Fort (1848-1849), By Charles Pettigrew 86
From the Caledonian
A Frontier Duel (1848), By Emerson Hough 115
From “The Covered Wagon”
El Dorado, By Bayard Taylor 124
From “Eldorado”
Frémont’s Great Ride (1849), By Frederick S. Dellenbaugh 158
From “Frémont and ’49”
The Luck of Roaring Camp, By Bret Harte161
From “The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches”
The City of the Saints, By Sir Richard Burton174
From “The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California” 
On the Comstock (1860), By J. Ross Browne202
From “A Peep at Washoe” and “Washoe Revisited”
Alder Gulch (1863), By Nathaniel P. Langford231
From “Vigilante Days and Ways”
Cheyennes and Sioux (1867), By General George A. Custer245
From “My Life on the Plains”
The Pony Express, By Mark Twain268
From “Roughing It”
Slade, By Mark Twain270
From “Roughing It”
General Sheridan Hunts the Buffalo, By De B. R. Keim284
From “On the Border with Sheridan’s Troopers”
At Tucson (1870), By Capt. John G. Bourke296
From “On the Border with Cook”
Told at Trinidad (1879), By A. A. Hayes, Jr.310
From “New Colorado and the Santa Fé Trail”
Specimen Jones, By Owen Wister319
From “Red Men and White”
The Land of the Straddle-Bug—Dakota (1883), By Hamlin Garland343
From “The Moccasin Ranch”
Old Ephraim the Grizzly, By Theodore Roosevelt357
From “Hunting-Trips of a Ranchman”
The Vanished Scene, By Hal G. Evarts378
From “The Passing of the Old West”