Jumping Rabbit’s Story. CHAPTER I. _The beginning.――My earliest recollections.――My home.――My parents.――A fearful scene._ Kind reader, as you and I are about to take a ramble together, I beg leave to settle one or two points at the outset. In the first place, then, I shall tell you my story in a very simple, plain way; for the circumstances of my life have qualified me to speak in no other fashion. In the next place, I shall endeavor to make my story the means of giving you some useful information. I have been a wanderer over the Far West; have seen the rivers, the mountains, the valleys, the wild animals, the tribes of Indians that are there; I have crossed the Rocky Mountains, and stood upon the shore of the broad Pacific; and I have thus picked up a good deal of information. While, therefore, I shall give you an account of my adventures, I shall endeavor to make you acquainted with some matters relating to the geography, the natural history, and the manners and customs of the great West. Thus, while I shall try to amuse you, I will try also to give you some little knowledge. I hope this arrangement will suit you; for if I give you _cake_, to which I compare tales of adventure, you should be content to take, now and then, a slice of solid _bread and butter_, to which I compare such useful matters as geography and natural history. And now to begin. At the period of my earliest recollection, I must have been about six years old. My father was then living on the White river, about one hundred miles west of the Mississippi, and in what is now the state of Arkansas. His house, which was only a log cabin, was four or five miles from any other white man’s dwelling. There was no town or village in that quarter; excepting a few scattered settlers here and there, the country was still uninhabited, except by native wild animals, or roving tribes of Indians. The latter were at peace with the whites for a long period, and therefore we had no fear of them. We frequently saw parties of Indian hunters, and occasionally considerable numbers came into the region where we dwelt. They often visited our cabin, but never gave us any annoyance. But the time arrived when a change took place. We heard fearful stories of Indian massacres, and more than one family, in the region where we lived, were entirely cut off.