The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scalp Hunters, by Mayne Reid

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Title: The Scalp Hunters

Author: Mayne Reid

Illustrator: F.A. Stewart

Release Date: October 31, 2007 [EBook #23268]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCALP HUNTERS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Scalp Hunters, A Romance of Northern Mexico, by Captain Mayne Reid.

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This is very much in the cowboys and Indians genre, and there can be no
doubt that the author knew exactly what he was writing about, and had
lived through similar experiences.

It was quite a hard book to transcribe, though the copy used was nice
and clean, because of the very large number of Mexican-Spanish words and
phrases. There was also a great deal of speech by people whose grammar
and words were supposed to indicate a lower education. Hence it was
not at all easy to present the book as the author would have liked, but
we think that at last we have got it just about right.

On writing this book Reid had the general public in mind. It was one
of his first. It was not until later that he adopted a more peaceful
style and wrote for a boy readership, saying that in those books there
was not a single passage that a boy could not read aloud to his mother
or his sister. This book falls just outside that scope.

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THE SCALP HUNTERS, A ROMANCE OF NORTHERN MEXICO, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE WILD WEST.

Unroll the world's map, and look upon the great northern continent of
America. Away to the wild west, away toward the setting sun, away
beyond many a far meridian, let your eyes wander. Rest them where
golden rivers rise among peaks that carry the eternal snow. Rest them
there.

You are looking upon a land whose features are un-furrowed by human
hands, still bearing the marks of the Almighty mould, as upon the
morning of creation; a region whose every object wears the impress of
God's image. His ambient spirit lives in the silent grandeur of its
mountains, and speak