[Illustration: They Crossed the Gila at Flood Tide (page 188).] _Thirty Years on The Frontier_ ....BY.... ROBERT McREYNOLDS, AUTHOR OF “_Rodney Wilkes_,” “_The Luxury of Poverty_,” “_A Modern Jean Valjean_,” “_Facts and Fancies_.” [Illustration] EL PASO PUBLISHING CO. COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. 1906 _Copyright by_ ROBERT MCREYNOLDS. 1906. TO LOUIS TALIAFERRO, _Colorado Springs, Colorado_. CONTENTS CHAPTER. PAGE. I. In Days of Innocence 1 II. Out for a Fortune 9 III. Black Hills Days 16 IV. The Custer Massacre 21 V. The Shadow Scout 31 VI. Indian Fight in Colorado 39 VII. A Cow Boy Duel 47 VIII. Pleasant Halfacre’s Revenge 53 IX. Capturing Wild Horses 63 X. An Expedition That Failed 72 XI. Across the Palm Desert 79 XII. The Last Stand of a Dying Race 87 XIII. The Tragedy of the Lost Mine 98 XIV. The Land of the Fair God 107 XV. Outlawry in Oklahoma 115 XVI. A New Land of Canaan 125 XVII. Told Around the Camp Fire 134 XVIII. The Lone Grave on the Mesa 141 XIX. Under the Black Flag 148 XX. In Cuban Jungles 156 XXI. Emulous of Washington 164 XXII. On the Round Up 169 XXIII. The Egypt of America 179 XXIV. In the Dome of the Sky 190 XXV. Where Nature is at her Best 197 XXVI. When the West was New 207 Thirty Years on the Frontier I. IN DAYS OF INNOCENCE. In the following pages I shall tell of much personal experience as well as important incidents which have come under my observation during thirty years on the frontier. As a cowboy, miner and pioneer, I have participated in many exciting events, none of which, however, caused me the prolonged grief that a certain bombshell affair did when I was a boy, resulting in a newspaper experience and habit of telling things, and eventually led to my coming West. My grandfather’s plantation in Kentucky and nearly opposite the town of Newburgh, on the Indiana side, was as much my home as was my mother’s. She being a widow and having my brother and sister to care for, as well as myself, felt a relief from the responsibility of looking after me when I was at my grandfather’s home.