Transcriber's Notes:

Blank pages have been eliminated.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in theoriginal.

A few typographical errors have been corrected.

The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.

TALES OF THE TRAIL

Short Stories of Western Life

BY

COLONEL HENRY INMAN
Late Assistant Quartermaster, United States Army

Author of "The Old Santa Fé Trail," "Salt Lake Trail"

FIFTH EDITION

Crane & Company, Publishers
Topeka, Kansas
1917

These "Tales of the Trail" are based uponactual facts which came under the personal observationof the author, whose reputation as awriter of the frontier is national. His otherworks have met with phenomenal success, andthese sketches, which have appeared from timeto time in the current literature of the UnitedStates, are now compiled, and will form anotherinteresting series of stories of that era of greatadventures, when the country west of the Missouriwas unknown except to the trappers,hunters, and army officers.

Some of the characters around which arewoven the thrilling incidents of these "Tales"were men of world-wide reputation; they havelong since joined the "choir invisible," but theirnames as pioneers in the genesis of great Stateswhich then formed the theater of their exploitswill live as long as the United States exists asa great nation.

However improbable to the uninitiated thethrilling experiences of the individuals who[vi]were actors in the scenes depicted, may seem,they are a proof that "truth is stranger thanfiction."

It is fortunate that Colonel Inman during hisforty years on the extreme frontier was such aclose observer, and noted from time to time thesestories of the frontier which form such an interestingpart of our Americana.

James L. King,

State Librarian.

Topeka, Kansas, March 1, 1898.