The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life is a first-person account of a 2-month summer tour in 1846 of the U.S. states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas. Francis Parkman, the author, was 23 at the time. The heart of the book covers the three weeks Parkman spent hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux.

Contents:

The Frontier

Breaking the Ice

Fort Leavenworth

"Jumping Off"

"The Big Blue"

The Platte and the Desert

The Buffalo

Taking French Leave

Scenes at Fort Laramie

The War Parties

Scenes at the Camp

Ill Luck

Hunting Indians

The Ogallalla Village

The Hunting Camp

The Trappers

The Black Hills

A Mountain Hunt

Passage of the Mountains

The Lonely Journey

The Pueblo and Bent's Fort

Tete Rouge, the Volunteer

Indian Alarms

The Chase

The Buffalo Camp

Down the Arkansas

The Settlements