The Prairie-Bird

Name: The Prairie-Bird
Author: Murray, Charles Augustus, Sir

Murray, Charles Augustus, Sir

Pawnee Indians -- Fiction

_R._—“Indeed! you are then the individual who resided with the
Pawnees, and published, a few years since, your Travels in North
America. I suppose we may expect in these volumes a sort of
_pot–pourri_, composed of all the notes, anecdotes, and observations
which you could not conveniently squeeze into your former book?”

_A._ (_looking rather foolish._)—“Although the terms in which you have
worded your conjecture are not the most flattering, I own that it is
not altogether without foundation; nevertheless, Gentle Reader——“

_R._—“Spare your epithets of endearment, or at least reserve them
until I have satisfied myself that I can reply in a similar strain.”

_A._—“Nay, it is too churlish to censure a harmless courtesy that has
been adopted even by the greatest dramatists and novelists from the
time of Shakspeare to the present day.”

_R._—“It may be so; permit me, however, to request, in the words of
one of those dramatists to whom you refer, that you will be so obliging
as to

                  ‘Forbear the prologue,
  And let me know the substance of thy tale!’”

  _The Orphan._




CONTENTS

  FIRST VOLUME

  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

       I. IN WHICH THE READER WILL FIND A SKETCH OF A VILLAGE IN
          THE WEST, AND WILL BE INTRODUCED TO SOME OF THE DRAMATIS
          PERSONÆ.                                                     1

      II. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE MARRIAGE OF COLONEL
          BRANDON, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.                               8

     III. CONTAINING SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF COLONEL AND MRS.
          BRANDON, AND OF THE EDUCATION OF THEIR SON REGINALD.        15

      IV. CONTAINING SUNDRY ADVENTURES OF REGINALD BRANDON AND
          HIS FRIEND ETHELSTON ON THE CONTINENT; ALSO SOME FURTHER
          PROCEEDINGS AT SQUIRE SHIRLEY’S; AND THE RETURN OF
          REGINALD BRANDON TO HIS HOME.—IN THIS CHAPTER THE
          SPORTING READER WILL FIND AN EXAMPLE OF AN UNMADE RIDER
          ON A MADE HUNTER.                                           20

       V. AN ADVENTURE IN THE WOODS.—REGINALD BRANDON MAKES THE
          ACQUAINTANCE OF AN INDIAN CHIEF.                            31

      VI. REGINALD AND BAPTISTE PAY A VISIT TO WAR–EAGLE.—AN
          ATTEMPT AT TREACHERY MEETS WITH SUMMARY PUNISHMENT.         39

     VII. CONTAINING SOME PARTICULARS OF THE HISTORY OF THE TWO
          DELAWARES AND OF BAPTISTE. THE LATTER RETURNS WITH
          REGINALD TO MOOSHANNE, THE RESIDENCE OF COLONEL BRANDON.    50

    VIII. CONTAINING A SKETCH OF MOOSHANNE.—REGINALD INTRODUCES
          HIS SISTER TO THE TWO DELAWARES.                            59

      IX. HOW REGINALD BRANDON RETURNED TO MOOSHANNE WITH HIS
          SISTER, ACCOMPANIED BY WINGENUND; AND WHAT BEFELL THEM
          ON THE ROAD.                                                71

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Prairie-Bird

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