attle with the Pawnees--The Massacre at Cow Creek.

CHAPTER XXI.
FOOLING STAGE ROBBERS.
Wagon Mound--John L. Hatcher's Thrilling Adventure with Old Wolf,
the War-chief of the Comanches--Incidents on the Trail--A Boy
Bugler's Happy Escape from the Savages at Fort Union--A Drunken
Stage-driver--How an Officer of the Quartermaster's Department
at Washington succeeded in starting the Military Freight Caravans
a Month Earlier than the Usual Time--How John Chisholm fooled
the Stage-robbers--The Story of Half a Plug of Tobacco.

CHAPTER XXII.
A DESPERATE RIDE.
Solitary Graves along the Line of the Old Santa Fe Trail--The Walnut
Crossing--Fort Zarah--The Graves on Hon. D. Heizer's Ranch on
the Walnut--Troops stationed at the Crossing of the Walnut--
A Terrible Five Miles--The Cavalry Recruit's Last Ride.

CHAPTER XXIII.
HANCOCK'S EXPEDITION.
General Hancock's Expedition against the Plains Indians--Terrible
Snow-storm at Fort Larned--Meeting with the Chiefs of the
Dog-Soldiers--Bull Bear's Diplomacy--Meeting of the United States
Troops and the Savages in Line of Battle--Custer's Night Experience--
The Surgeon and Dog Stew--Destruction of the Village by Fire--
General Sully's Fight with the Kiowas, Comanches, and Arapahoes--
Finding the Skeletons of the Unfortunate Men--The Savages' Report
of the Affair.

CHAPTER XXIV.
INVASION OF THE RAILROAD.
Scenery on the Line of the Old Santa Fe Trail--The Great Plains--
The Arkansas Valley--Over the Rocky Mountains into New Mexico--
The Raton Range--The Spanish Peaks--Simpson's Rest--Fisher's Peak
--Raton Peak--Snowy Range--Pike's Peak--Raton Creek--The Invasion
of the Railroad--The Old Santa Fe Trail a Thing of the Past.

FOOTNOTES.

PUBLICATION INFORMATION.

INTRODUCTION.

For more than three centuries, a period extending from 1541 to 1851,
historians believed, and so announced to the literary world, that
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, the celebrated Spanish explorer, in his
search for the Seven Cities of Cibola and the Kingdom of Quivira, was
the first European to travel over the intra-continent region of North
America. In the last year above referred to, however, Buckingham Smith,
of Florida, an eminent Spanish scholar, and secretary of the American
Legation at Madrid, discovered among the archives of State the
_Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca_, where for nearly three
hundred years it