Certain of these men have been accused of being adventurers, as they unquestionably were--but what, pray, were Hawkins and Raleigh and Drake? Others have been condemned as being filibusters, an accusation which in some cases was doubtless deserved--but were Jason and his Argonauts anything but filibusters who raided Colchis to loot it of the golden fleece? Adventurers and filibusters though some of them may have been, they were brave men (there can be no disputing that) and makers of history. But it was their fortune--or misfortune--to have been romantic and picturesque and to have gone ahead without the formality of obtaining the government’s commission or permission, which, in the eyes of the sedate and prosaic historians, has completely damned them. But, as we have not hesitated to benefit from the lands they won for us, it is but doing them the barest justice to listen to their stories. And I think you will agree with me that in their stories there is remarkably little of which we need to feel ashamed and much of which we have reason to be proud. Devious and dangerous were the roads which these men followed--amid the swamps of Florida, across the sun-baked Texan prairies, down the burning deserts of Chihuahua, over the snow-bound ridges of the Rockies, into the miasmic jungles of Tabasco, along the pirate-haunted coasts of Malaysia, across the Indian country, through the mined and shot-swept straits of Shimonoseki; but, no matter what perils bordered them, or into what far corner of the earth they led, at the end Glory beckoned and called. E. ALEXANDER POWELL. SANTA BARBARA, California. CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD vii I. ADVENTURERS ALL 1 II. WHEN WE SMASHED THE PROPHET’S POWER 55 III. THE WAR THAT WASN’T A WAR 87 IV. THE FIGHT AT QUALLA BATTOO 131 V. UNDER THE FLAG OF THE LONE STAR 161 VI. THE PREACHER WHO RODE FOR AN EMPIRE 195 VII. THE MARCH OF THE ONE THOUSAND 235 VIII. WHEN WE FOUGHT THE JAPANESE 277 ILLUSTRATIONS On the decks above were three hundred desperate and well-armed natives _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE The Indians, panic-stricken at the sight of the oncoming troopers, broke and ran 84 Bowie, propped on his pillows, shot two soldiers and plunged his terrible knife into the throat of another 178 In another moment the gun was pouring death into the ranks of its late owners 260 ADVENTURERS ALL ADVENTURERS ALL