ere in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

The meteoric voice said "Excelsior!" It should have said "Bonehead!" It
would have said it, too, if Ned Buntline had been handling the subject,
for he had a sense of verities, had Ned. Probably that was one of the
reasons why they barred his works out of all the schoolbooks.

With the passage of years I rather imagine that Lieutenant G-----, of
the United States Navy, who went to so much trouble and took so many
needless pains in order to become a corpse may have vanished from
the school readers. I admit I failed to find him in any of the modern
editions through which I glanced, but I am able to report, as a
result of my researches, that the well-known croupe specialist, Young
Lochinvar, is still there and so likewise is Casabianca, the total loss;
and as I said before, I ran across Excelsior three times.

Just here the other day, when I was preparing the material for this
little book, I happened upon an advertisement in a New York paper of an
auction sale of a collection of so-called dime novels, dating back to
the old Beadle's Boy's Library in the early eighties and coming on
down through the years into the generation when Nick and Old Cap were
succeeding some of the earlier favorites. I read off a few of the
leading titles upon the list:

Bronze Jack, the California Thoroughbred; or, The Lost City of the
Basaltic Buttes. A strange story of a desperate adventure after fortune
in the weird, wild Apache land. By Albert W. Aiken.

Tombstone Dick, the Train Pilot; or, The Traitor's Trail. A story of the
Arizona Wilds. By Ned Buntline.

The Tarantula of Taos; or, Giant George's Revenge. A tale of Sardine-box
City, Arizona. By Major Sam S. (Buckskin Sam) Hall.

Redtop Rube, the Vigilante Prince; or, The Black Regulators of Arizona.
By Major E. L. St. Vrain.

Old Grizzly Adams, the Bear Tamer; or, The Monarch of the Mountains.

Deadly Eye and the Prairie Rover.

Arizona Joe, the Boy Pard of Texas Jack.

Pacific Pete, the Prince of the Revolver.

Kit Carson, King of the Guides.

Leadville Nick, the Boy Sport; or, The Mad Miner's Revenge.

Lighthouse Lige; or, The Firebrand of the Everglades.

The Desperate Dozen; or, The Fair Fiend.

Nighthawk Kit; or, The Daughter of the Ranch.

Joaquin, the Saddle King.

Mustang Sam, the Wild Rider of the Plains.