146
Field Cot--Camp Bureau 148
Mess-chest 149
Horse-litter 151
Hand-litter 154
The Grizzly 167
Horse-tracks 178
Keep away! 209
Calling up Antelopes 245
The Needles 254
Chimney Rock 269
Devil's Gate 271
Well in the Desert 292
Map of the Pike's Peak Gold Region 296
Sangre de Cristo Pass 300
San Francisco Mountain 309
Canon on Bill Williams's Fork 312
Artillery Peak 313

PREFACE.

A quarter of a century's experience in frontier life, a great portion
of which has been occupied in exploring the interior of our continent,
and in long marches where I have been thrown exclusively upon my own
resources, far beyond the bounds of the populated districts, and where
the traveler must vary his expedients to surmount the numerous
obstacles which the nature of the country continually reproduces, has
shown me under what great disadvantages the "_voyageur_" labors for
want of a timely initiation into those minor details of prairie-craft,
which, however apparently unimportant in the abstract, are sure, upon
the plains, to turn the balance of success for or against an
enterprise.

This information is so varied, and is derived from so many different
sources, that I still find every new expedition adds substantially to
my practical knowledge, and am satisfied that a good Prairie Manual
will be for the young traveler an addition to his equipment of
inappreciable value.

With such a book in his hand, he will be able, in difficult circumstances,
to avail himself of the matured experience of veteran travelers, and
thereby avoid many otherwise unforeseen disasters; while, during the
ordinary routine of march