Illustrated with Sixteen Engravings from Original Designs
Philadelphia:
J.B. Lippincott & Co.
1875
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by J.B. Jones,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Stereotyped By L. Johnson & Co.,
Philadelphia.
PREFACE.
When a work of fiction has reached its fortieth edition, one would suppose the author might congratulate himself upon having contributed something of an imperishable character to the literature of the country. But no such pretensions are asserted for this production, now in its fortieth thousand. Being the first essay of an impetuous youth in a field where giants even have not always successfully contended, it would be a rash assumption to suppose it could receive from those who confer such honors any high award of merit. It has been before the public some fifteen years, and has never been reviewed. Perhaps the forbearance of those who wield the cerebral scalpels may not be further prolonged, and the book remains amenable to the judgment they may be pleased to pronounce.
To that portion of the public who have read with approbation so many thousands of his book, the author may speak with greater confidence. To this class of his friends he may make disclosures and confessions pertaining to the secret history of the “Wild Western Scenes,” without the hazard of incurring their displeasure.
Like the hero of his book, the author had his vicissitudes in boyhood, and committed such indiscretions as were incident to one of his years and circumstances, but nevertheless only such as might be readily pardoned by the charitable. Like Glenn, he submitted to a voluntary exile in the wilds of Missouri. Hence the description of scenery is a true picture, and several characters in the scenes were real persons. Many of the occurrences actually transpired in his presence, or had been enacted in the vicinity at no remote period; and the dream of the hero—his visit to the haunted island—was truly a dream of the author’s.