These "_Facts About the West_" consist chiefly of anecdotes of the border ruffian kind, descriptions of various atrocities, Indian massacres, Mormon outrages and vigilance committees, and are of such a very highly colored and blood-curdling description that Mr. Chauncey himself remarks, as he finishes the volume: "If these are _facts_ about the West, I think the _fiction_ will be too rich for my blood!" Though half-believing the same, this young gentleman imagines he has acquired in his two days between New York and Council Bluffs, considerable knowledge of the manners of the Western frontiersman, border-ruffians, stage-drivers, Indians, Mormons, and buffaloes. A number of the more blood-curdling anecdotes he has detailed to Mrs. Livingston at odd times, enjoying her shudderings at such stories as that of the waiter in the New Mexico hotel, who shot the Chicago drummer to death because he declined to eat the eggs and said they were incipient chickens; also, a few of the more cruel exploits of celebrated Johnnie Slade, the murderous superintendent of a division of the Ben Holliday's stage line, together with a full, true and accurate account of the atrocious butchery of one hundred and thirty three men, women and children by the notorious John D. Lee, of Utah, the Mormon bishop, and a portion of the Mormon militia, disguised as Indians, that occurred in 1857, and now known under the head of the Mountain Meadow Massacre; "The Last Shot of Joaquin, the California Bandit," etc., etc. These revelations of Western atrocity Mr. Ferdinand is delighted to see produce upon the nerves of Mrs. Livingston effects more demoralizing than the morphine habit. And he would continue his narrations, with much _gusto_, to the agitated Mrs. Livingston, did not Erma, who has been listening indifferently to his tales of blood, suddenly, at her first opportunity, lead the chuckling Ferdie aside, and, placing two flaming eyes upon him, whisper: "Not another of your Western horrors to your aunt!" Then her voice grows pathetic, and she mutters: "Would you frighten her so that she retreats from her journey and takes me back to New York, and deprives me of seeing my father--the joy I am looking forward to minute by minute, and hour by hour." This oration, emphasized by savage glances and made pathetic by flashing eyes, has a great effect on Mr. Ferdinand, and he promises silence, remarking to himself: "What a stunner that Erma is, and only out of boarding school ten months."