Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains; or, The Last Voice from the Plains. An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West, by Capt. William F. Drannan, Who Went on to the Plains When Fifteen Years Old

Published: Chicago, Rhodes & McClure Publishing Company, 1900

Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, City of Mexico, San Francisco, Sacramento, Alaska, Denver, Klamath Lake, Indians (Comanches, Utes, Modoc, Sioux, Apaches), society, buffalo, army forts, gold, massacres, and much more

In writing this preface I do so with the full knowledge that the preface of a book is rarely read, comparatively speaking, but I shall write this one just the same.

In writing this work the author has made no attempt at romance, or a great literary production, but has narrated in his own plain, blunt way, the incidents of his life as they actually occurred.

There have been so many books put upon the market, purporting to be the lives of noted frontiersmen which are only fiction, that I am moved to ask the reader to consider well before condemning this book as such.

The author starts out with the most notable events of his boyhood days, among them his troubles with an old negro virago, wherein he gets his revenge by throwing a nest of lively hornets under her feet. Then come his flight and a trip, to St. Louis, hundreds of miles on foot, his accidental meeting with that most eminent man of his class, Kit Carson, who takes the lad into his care and treats him as a kind father would a son. He then proceeds to give a minute description of his first trip on the plains, where he meets and associates with such noted plainsmen as Gen. John Charles Fremont, James Beckwith, Jim Bridger and others, and gives incidents of his association with them in scouting, trapping, hunting big game, Indian fighting, etc.

The author also gives brief sketches of the springing into existence of many of the noted cities of the West, and the incidents connected therewith that have never been written before. There is also a faithful recital of his many years of scouting for such famous Indian fighters as Gen. Crook, Gen. Connor, Col. Elliott, Gen. Wheaton and others, all of which will be of more than passing interest to those who can be entertained by the early history of the western part of our great republic.

This work also gives an insight into the lives of the hardy pioneers of the far West, and the many trials and hardships they had to undergo in blazing the trail and hewing the way to one of the grandest and most healthful regions of the United States.
W. F. D.

CHICAGO, August 1st, 1899.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I [1]. A Boy Escapes a Tyrant and Pays a Debt with a Hornet's Nest.--Meets Kit Carson and Becomes the Owner of a Pony and a Gun

CHAPTER II [2]. Beginning of an Adventurous Life.--First Wild Turkey.--First Buffalo.--First Feast as an Honored Guest of Indians.--Dog Meat

CHAPTER III [3]. Hunting and Trapping in South Park, Where a Boy, Unaided, Kills and Scalps Two Indians.--Meeting with Fremont, the "Path-finder"

CHAPTER IV [4]. A Winter in North Park.--Running Fight with a Band of Utes for More than a Hundred Miles, Ending Hand to Hand.--Victory

CHAPTER V [5]. On the Cache-la-Poudre.--Visit from Gray Eagle, Chief of the Arapahoes..--A Bear-hunter is Hunted by the Bear.--Phil, the Cannibal

CHAPTER VI [6]. Two Boys Ride to the City of Mexico.--Eleven Hundred Miles of Trial, Danger and Duty.--A Gift Horse.--The Wind River Mountains

CHAPTER VII [7]. A Three Days' Battle Between the Comanches and the Utes for the Possession of a "Hunter's Paradise".--An Unseasonable Bath.

CHAPTER VIII [8]. Kit Carson Kills a Hudson Bay Company's Trapper, Who Was Spoiling for a Fight.--Social Good Time with a Train of Emigrants

CHAPTER IX [9]. Marriage of Kit Carson.--The Wedding Feast.--Providing Buffalo Meat, in the Original Package, for the Boarding-house at Bent's Fort

CHAPTER X [10]. Robber Gamblers of San Francisco.--Engaged by Col. Elliott as Indian Scout.--Kills and Scalps Five Indians.--Promoted to Chief Scout

CHAPTER XI [11]. A Lively Battle with Pah-Utes.--Pinned to Saddle with an Arrow.--Some Very Good Indians.--Stuttering Captain.--Beckwith Opens His Pass

CAAPTER XII [12]. Col. Elliott Kills His First Deer, and Secures a Fine Pair of Horns as Present for His Father.--Beckwith's Tavern.--Society

CHAPTER XIII [l3]. Something Worse than Fighting Indians.--Dance at Col. Elliott's.--Conspicuous Suit of Buckskin.--I Manage to Get Back to Beckwith's

CHAPTER XIV [14]. Drilling the Detailed Scouts.---We Get Among the Utes.--Four Scouts Have Not Reported Yet.--Another Lively Fight.--Beckwith Makes a Raise

CHAPTER XV [15]. A Hunt on Petaluma Creek.--Elk Fever Breaks Out.--The Expedition to Klamath Lake.--A Lively Brush with Modoc Indians

CHAPTER XVI [16]. More Fish than I Had Ever Seen at One Time.--We Surprise Some Indians, Who Also Surprise Us.--The Camp at Klamath Lake.--I Get Another Wound and a Lot of Horses

CHAPTER XVII [17]. Discovery of Indians with Stolen Horses.--We Kill the Indians and Return the Property to Its Owners.--Meeting of Miners.--In Society Again

CHAPTER XVIII [18]. Trapping on the Gila.--The Pimas Impart a Secret.--Rescue of a White Girl.--A Young Indian Ages.--Visit to Taos.--Uncle Kit Fails to Recognize Me

CHAPTER XIX [19]. A Warm Time in a Cold Country.--A Band of Bannocks Chase Us Into a Storm that Saves Us.--Kit Carson Slightly Wounded.--Beckwith Makes a Century Run

CHAPTER XX [20]. Carson Quits the Trail.--Buffalo Robes for Ten Cents.--"Pike's Peak or Bust".--The New City of Denver.--"Busted".--How the News Started

CHAPTER XXI [21]. A Fight With the Sioux.--Hasa, the Mexican Boy, Killed.--Mixed Up With Emigrants Some More.--Four New Graves.--Successful Trading With the Kiowas

CHAPTER XXII [22]. A Trip to Fort Kearney.--The General Endorses Us and We Pilot an Emigrant Train to California.--Woman Who Thought I Was "no Gentleman".--A Camp Dance

CHAPTER XXIII [23]. Bridger and West Give Christmas a High Old Welcome in Sacramento.--California Gulch.--Meeting with Buffalo Bill.--Thirty-three Scalps with One Knife

CHAPTER XXIV [24]. Face to Face with a Band of Apaches.--The Death of Pinto.--The Closest Call I Ever Had.--A Night Escape.--Back at Fort Douglas

CHAPTER XXV [25]. Three Thousand Dead Indians.--A Detective from Chicago.--He Goes Home with an Old Mormon's Youngest Wife and Gets into Trouble.--The Flight

CHAPTER XXVI [26]. Through to Bannock.--A Dance of Peace Fright of the Negroes.--A Freight Train Snowed in and a Trip on Snow-shoes.--Some Very Tough Road Agents

CHAPTER XXVII [27]. Organization of a Vigilance Committe.--End of the Notorious Slade.--One Hundred Dollars for a "Crow-bait" Horse.--Flour a Dollar a Pound.

CHATER XXVIII [28]. Twenty-two Thousand Dollars in Gold Dust.--A Stage Robbery.--Another Trip to California Meeting with Gen. Crook.--Chief of Scouts

CHAPTER XXIX [29]. Find Some Murdered Emigrants.--We Bury the Dead and Follow and Scalp the Indians.--Gen. Crook Is Pleased with the Outcome.--A Mojave Blanket

CHAPTER XXX [30]. A Wicked Little Battle.--Capture of One Hundred and Eighty-two Horses.--Discovery of Black Canyon.--Fort Yuma and the Paymaster

CHAPTER XXXI [31]. To California for Horses.--My Beautiful Mare, Black Bess.--We Get Sixty-six Scalps and Seventy-eight Horses.--A Clean Sweep

CHAPTER XXXII [32]. Some Men Who Were Anxious for a Fight and Got It.--Gen. Crook at Black Canyon.--Bad Mistake of a Good Man.--The Victims

CHAPTER XXXIII [33]. The Massacre at Choke Cherry Canyon.--Mike Maloney Gets Into a Muss.--Rescue of White Girls.--Mike Gets Even with the Apaches

CHAPTER XXXIV [34]. Massacre of the Davis Family.--A Hard Ride and Swift Retribution.--A Pitiful Story.--Burial of the Dead.--I am Sick of the Business

CHAPTER XXXV [35]. Black Bess Becomes Popular in San Francisco.--A Failure as Rancher.--Buying Horses in Oregon.--The Klamath Marsh.--Captain Jack the Modoc

CHAPTER XXXVI [36]. The Modoc War.--Gen. Wheaton Is Held Off by the Indians.--Gen. Canby Takes Command and Gets It Worse-Massacre of the Peace Commission

CHAPTER XXXVII [37]. The Cry of a Babe.--Capture of a Bevy of Squaws.--Treachery of Gen. Ross' Men in Killing Prisoners.--Capture of the Modoc Chief

CHAPTER XXXVIII [38]. Story of the Captured Braves.--Why Captain Jack Deserted.--Loathsome Condition of the Indian Stronghold.--End of the War.--Some Comments

CHAPTER XXXIX [39]. An Interested Boy.--Execution of the Modoc Leaders.--Newspaper Messengers.--A Very Sudden Deputy Sheriff.--A Bad Man Wound Up

CHAPTER XL [40]. In Society Some More.--A Very Tight Place.--Ten Pairs of Yankee Ears.--Black Bess Shakes Herself at the Right Time.--Solemn Compact.

CHAPTER XLI [41]. We Locate a Small Band of Red Butchers and Send them to the Happy Hunting Grounds.--Emigrants Mistake Us for Indians.--George Jones Wounded

CHAPTER XLII [42]. "We Are All Surrounded".--A Bold Dash and a Bad Wound.--Mrs. Davis Shows Her Gratitude.--Most of My Work Now Done on Crutches

CHAPTER XLIII [43]. Poor Jones Makes His Last Fight.--He Died Among a Lot of the Devils He Had Slain.--End of Thirty-one Years of Hunting, Trapping and Scouting

CHAPTER XLIV [44]. A Grizzley Hunts the Hunter.--Shooting Seals in Alaskan Waters.--I Become a Seattle Hotel Keeper and the Big Fire Closes Me Out.--Some Rest.--The Old Scout's Lament