The Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Chief, by Mayne Reid

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Title: The White Chief
A Legend of Northern Mexico

Author: Mayne Reid

Illustrator: L. Evans

Release Date: October 25, 2007 [EBook #23193]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE CHIEF ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The White Chief, A Legend of Northern Mexico, by Captain Mayne Reid.

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An exciting and well-written book by Mayne Reid based on his experiences
during the war between America and Mexico in the 1840s. Reid took the
title of "Captain" because that was what his men called him during that
war, although he was never promoted to that rank.

The importance of Reid's books with this background is that they were
among the first in the Wild West genre.

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THE WHITE CHIEF, A LEGEND OF NORTHERN MEXICO, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID.

CHAPTER ONE.

Deep in the interior of the American Continent--more than a thousand
miles from the shores of any sea--lies our scene.

Climb with me yonder mountain, and let us look from its summit of snow.

We have reached its highest ridge. What do we behold?

On the north a chaos of mountains, that continues on through thirty
parallels to the shores of the Arctic Sea! On the south, the same
mountains,--here running in separate sierras, and there knotting with
each other. On the west, mountains again, profiled along the sky, and
alternating with broad tables that stretch between their bases.

Now turn we around, and look eastward. Not a mountain to be seen! Far
as the eye can reach, and a thousand miles farther, not a mountain.
Yonder dark line rising above the plain is but the rocky brow of another
plain--a _steppe_ of higher elevation.

Where are we? On what summit are we standing? On the Sierra Blanca,
known to the hunter as the "Spanish Peaks." We are upon the western rim
of the _Grand Prairie_.

Looking eastward, the eye discovers no signs of civilisation. There
_are_ none within a month's journeying. N