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STORIES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
THE
LAST AMERICAN FRONTIER
BY
FREDERIC LOGAN PAXSON
JUNIOR PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ILLUSTRATED
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1910
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1910,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
I have told here the story of the last frontierwithin the United States, trying at once to preservethe picturesque atmosphere which has given to the"Far West" a definite and well-understood meaning,and to indicate those forces which have shapedthe history of the country beyond the Mississippi.In doing it I have had to rely largely upon my owninvestigations among sources little used and relativelyinaccessible. The exact citations of authority,with which I might have crowded my pages, wouldhave been out of place in a book not primarily intendedfor the use of scholars. But I hope, beforemany years, to exploit in a larger and more elaborateform the mass of detailed information uponwhich this sketch is based.
My greatest debts are to the owners of the originalsfrom which the illustrations for this book havebeen made; to Claude H. Van Tyne, who has repeatedlyaided me with his friendly criticism; andto my wife, whose careful readings have saved mefrom many blunde