| 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. Frémont | [37] |
| 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 Harte | [161] |
| From “The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches” |
| The City of the Saints, By Sir Richard Burton | [174] |
| From “The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California” | |
| On the Comstock (1860), By J. Ross Browne | [202] |
| From “A Peep at Washoe” and “Washoe Revisited” |
| Alder Gulch (1863), By Nathaniel P. Langford | [231] |
| From “Vigilante Days and Ways” |
| Cheyennes and Sioux (1867), By General George A. Custer | [245] |
| From “My Life on the Plains” |
| The Pony Express, By Mark Twain | [268] |
| From “Roughing It” |
| Slade, By Mark Twain | [270] |
| From “Roughing It” |
| General Sheridan Hunts the Buffalo, By De B. R. Keim | [284] |
| From “On the Border with Sheridan’s Troopers” |
| At Tucson (1870), By Capt. John G. Bourke | [296] |
| 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 Wister | [319] |
| From “Red Men and White” |
| The Land of the Straddle-Bug—Dakota (1883), By Hamlin Garland | [343] |
| From “The Moccasin Ranch” |
| Old Ephraim the Grizzly, By Theodore Roosevelt | [357] |
| From “Hunting-Trips of a Ranchman” |
| The Vanished Scene, By Hal G. Evarts | [378] |
| From “The Passing of the Old West” |