The chapters in this book appeared first as part of a series of articles under the same title contributed to Forest and Stream several years ago. At the time they aroused much interest and there was a demand that they should be put into book form.
The books from which these accounts have been drawn are good reading for all Americans. They are at once history and adventure. They deal with a time when half the continent was unknown; when the West—distant and full of romance—held for the young, the brave and the hardy, possibilities that were limitless.
The legend of the kingdom of El Dorado did not pass with the passing of the Spaniards. All through the eighteenth and a part of the nineteenth century it was recalled in another sense by the fur trader, and with the discovery of gold in California it was heard again by a great multitude—and almost with its old meaning.
Besides these old books on the West, there are many others which every American should read. They treat of that same romantic period, and describe the adventures of explorers, Indian fighters, fur hunters and fur traders. They are a part of the history of the continent.
New York, April, 1911.