and I climbed in and out of the deep canyons, desperately staying at
the heels of one of those long-legged Texans. I learned the life of
those backwoodsmen, but I did not get the story of the Pleasant
Valley War. I had, however, won the friendship of that hardy people.

In 1920 I went back with a still larger outfit, equipped to stay as
long as I liked. And this time, without my asking it, different
natives of the Tonto came to tell me about the Pleasant Valley War.
No two of them agreed on anything concerning it, except that only one
of the active participants survived the fighting. Whence comes my
title, TO THE LAST MAN. Thus I was swamped in a mass of material
out of which I could only flounder to my own conclusion. Some of
the stories told me are singularly tempting to a novelist. But,
though I believe them myself, I cannot risk their improbability
to those who have no idea of the wildness of wild men at a wild
time. There really was a terrible and bloody feud, perhaps the
most deadly and least known in all the annals of the West. I saw
the ground, the cabins, the graves, all so darkly suggestive of
what must have happened.

I never learned the truth of the cause of the Pleasant Valley War,
or if I did hear it I had no means of recognizing it. All the given
causes were plausible and convincing. Strange to state, there is
still secrecy and reticence all over the Tonto Basin as to the facts
of this feud. Many descendents of those killed are living there now.
But no one likes to talk about it. Assuredly many of the incidents
told me really occurred, as, for example, the terrible one of the
two women, in the face of relentless enemies, saving the bodies of
their dead husbands from being devoured by wild hogs. Suffice it to
say that this romance is true to my conception of the war, and I base