Our pioneer heroes and their daring deeds

Front matter

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Preface

MANY are the books that give in interesting detail the adventures of a single or a few heroes, or of a restricted region of the American frontiers. But it has been the conception of this volume to present a broad view, embracing the more celebrated episodes of the life led by the most noted pioneer explorers, early settlers and brave soldiers who have won distinction in border warfare. It is surely a worthy task to gather, in a natural, chronological succession, records of those thrilling exploits, the recitals of which, oft repeated, have secured their heroes immortality.

If it be objected that many of these worthies seemed to lack a sufficient respect for the sacredness of human life, their surroundings should be remembered. If they were apparently too ready with the knife or the trigger, it was because their own lives were felt to be held cheaply by many about them who were unrestrainable by law.

At least we have glorified no gory outlaws, nor have we painted in alluring colors the road to the penitentiary or the scaffold.

The chain is nearly complete : not entirely, for it was not designed to make a set history of all border events of interest. The chief aim has been to display the differing phases of the same long battle on the frontiers, from decade to decade, through centuries, as the Indian races were gradually pushed back by the march of the encroaching white race, till it enveloped them on all sides. It is impossible to give, in a single volume, or, indeed, in a small library, the lives of all Americans who have met with remarkable and thrilling adventures with either brute or human aborigines. But it is believed that the most typical character of each strongly marked period has been selected; and while it is also imprac-

VI PREFACE.

ticable to include all the stories relating to such men, it is thought that those incidents most characteristic of a man and his times, and possessing the most interest to the reader, have been chosen. So many diiferent volumes have been consulted, that to refer each statement to the authority upon which it is based would needlessly encumber the book. When the original j^ossesses special interest, as in the case of Boone's Autobiography, or Crockett's Diary in the Alamo, it is specially quoted.

D. M. K.

Contents

CHAPTEE I.

FEEDINAND DE SOTO.

Birth and Education — The Grandee's Daughter — Getting Pad of the Lover — In America — The Duel — Sentenced to Deatli — ^With Pizarro in South America — Acquires Wealth at Last — Keturns to Spain — ^Honors — Marriage — Discontented — Organizes an Expedition to Florida — His Lieutenant — Hostile Keception by Natives — Obdurate Ucita — The Lieutenant Goes out for Wool and Comes Back Shorn — De Soto Gets Fairly on the Way — To the Land of Gold Hats — Perversity of the Indians — Attacked on Every Hand — Vitacucho's Plot and its Miscan-iage — De Soto Still Eesolute — Presses Forward — The Indian Princess — Spanish Gratitude • — Tuscaloosa — A Grand Reception, a Battle and a Massacre — Northward through Difficulties— The Father of Waters— Still Westward, Ho !— Driven Back— Insults and Injuries — Sickness — Death — His Grave — The End of the Romance. . . 19-46