generous thoughtfulness of manhood's prime.

Thus a part of my pleasant task has been to enable the public to see my
brother through his sister's eyes--eyes that have seen truly if kindly.
If I have been tempted into praise where simple narrative might to the
reader seem all that was required, if I have seemed to exaggerate in any
of my history's details, I may say that I am not conscious of having set
down more than "a plain, unvarnished tale." Embarrassed with riches of
fact, I have had no thought of fiction. H. C. W.

CODYVIEW, DULUTH, MINNESOTA, February 26, 1899.




LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS.



CHAPTER I. -- THE OLD HOMESTEAD IN IOWA.

A PLEASANT, roomy farm-house, set in the sunlight against a background
of cool, green wood and mottled meadow--this is the picture that my
earliest memories frame for me. To this home my parents, Isaac and Mary
Cody, had moved soon after their marriage.

The place was known as the Scott farm, and was situated in Scott County,
Iowa, near the historic little town of Le Clair, where, but a few years
before, a village of the Fox Indians had been located; where Black Hawk
and his thousand warriors had assembled for their last war-dance; where