Life and adventures of "Billy" Dixon of Adobe Walls, Texas panhandle

The Fight at Adobe Walls. (From an Oil Painting by Miss Gwynfred Jones, Hansford, Texas.—Copyrighted.)
A Narrative in Which Is Described Many Things Relating to the Early Southwest, with an Account of the Fight Between Indians and Buffalo Hunters at Adobe Walls, and the Desperate Engagement at Buffalo Wallow, for which Congress voted the Medal of Honor to the Survivors.
COMPILED BY Frederick S. Barde GUTHRIE, OKLAHOMA
Copyright, 1914 By MRS. OLIVE DIXON
PRINTED BY THE Co-Operative Publishing Co. GUTHRIE, OKLAHOMA
Life of Billy Dixon
In no other country could there have been found a region so inviting, so alluring, so fascinating, to the spirit of adventure as the Great Plains. How it gripped the imagination of young men, sons of pioneers, between the Mississippi and the Alleghanies, in those early days! How it called to them, and beckoned to them to forsake their homes and journey westward into the unknown!
Vast and undisturbed, it stretched from the British Possession to the Rio Grande. It was a natural stage on which was enacted the most picturesque and romantic drama of the nineteenth century. Its background was the Rocky Mountains, from whose towering ramparts the Plains swept down toward the east, giving an unobstructed view of the stirring panorama that for more than half a century was unrivalled for its scenes of daring and conquest.
The Plains were marvelously adapted to the needs of uncivilized people, who derived their sustenance from the bounty of the wilderness and to the heavy increase and perpetuation of the animal life upon which they subsisted. Upon its level floors, enemies or game could be seen from afar, an advantage in both warfare and hunting. The natural grasses were almost miraculously disposed to the peculiarities of soil and climate, affording the richest pasturage in the green of summer and becoming even more nutritious as the seasons advanced toward the snows of winter. This insured the presence of enormous numbers of herbivorous animals, such as the buffalo, the antelope and the deer, from which the Indian derived his principal food and fashioned his garments and his shelter. His only toil was the chase with its splendid excitement, and his only danger the onslaught of tribal enemies. The climate was healthful and invigorating. In all the world could not have been found a more delightful home for primitive men.