The Scalp Hunters

The Scalp Hunters by Captain Mayne Reid
Chapter I.
The Wild West.
Unroll the world's map, and look upon the great northern continent of
America. Away to the wild west, away toward the setting sun, away
beyond many a far meridian, let your eyes wander. Rest them where
golden rivers rise among peaks that carry the eternal snow. Rest them
there.
You are looking upon a land whose features are un-furrowed by human
hands, still bearing the marks of the Almighty mould, as upon the
morning of creation; a region whose every object wears the impress of
God's image. His ambient spirit lives in the silent grandeur of its
mountains, and speaks in the roar of its mighty rivers: a region redolent
of romance, rich in the reality of adventure.
Follow me, with the eye of your mind, through scenes of wild beauty,
of savage sublimity.
I stand in an open plain. I turn my face to the north, to the south, to the
east, and to the west; and on all sides behold the blue circle of the
heavens girdling around me. Nor rock, nor tree, breaks the ring of the
horizon. What covers the broad expanse between? Wood? water? grass?
No; flowers. As far as my eye can range, it rests only on flowers, on
beautiful flowers!
I am looking as on a tinted map, an enamelled picture brilliant with
every hue of the prism.
Yonder is golden yellow, where the helianthus turns her dial-like face
to the sun. Yonder, scarlet, where the malva erects its red banner. Here
is a parterre of the purple monarda, there the euphorbia sheds its silver

leaf. Yonder the orange predominates in the showy flowers of the
asclepia; and beyond, the eye roams over the pink blossoms of the
cleome.
The breeze stirs them. Millions of corollas are waving their gaudy
standards. The tall stalks of the helianthus bend and rise in long
undulations, like billows on a golden sea.
They are at rest again. The air is filled with odours sweet as the
perfumes of Araby or Ind. Myriads of insects flap their gay wings:
flowers of themselves. The bee-birds skirr around, glancing like stray
sunbeams; or, poised on whirring wings, drink from the nectared cups;
and the wild bee, with laden limbs, clings among the honeyed pistils, or
leaves for his far hive with a song of joy.
Who planted these flowers? Who hath woven them into these pictured
parterres? Nature. It is her richest mantle, richer in its hues than the
scarfs of Cashmere.
This is the "weed prairie." It is misnamed. It is "the garden of God."
The scene is changed. I am in a plain as before, with the unbroken
horizon circling around me. What do I behold? Flowers? No; there is
not a flower in sight, but one vast expanse of living verdure. From
north to south, from east to west, stretches the prairie meadow, green as
an emerald, and smooth as the surface of a sleeping lake.
The wind is upon its bosom, sweeping the silken blades. They are in
motion; and the verdure is dappled into lighter and darker shades, as
the shadows of summer clouds flitting across the sun.
The eye wanders without resistance. Perchance it encounters the dark
hirsute forms of the buffalo, or traces the tiny outlines of the antelope.
Perchance it follows, in pleased wonder, the far-wild gallop of a
snow-white steed.
This is the "grass prairie," the boundless pasture of the bison.

The scene changes. The earth is no longer level, but treeless and
verdant as ever. Its surface exhibits a succession of parallel undulations,
here and there swelling into smooth round hills. It is covered with a soft
turf of brilliant greenness. These undulations remind one of the ocean
after a mighty storm, when the crisped foam has died upon the waves,
and the big swell comes bowling in. They look as though they had once
been such waves, that by an omnipotent mandate had been transformed
to earth and suddenly stood still.
This is the "rolling prairie."
Again the scene changes. I am among greenswards and bright flowers;
but the view is broken by groves and clumps of copse-wood. The
frondage is varied, its tints are vivid, its outlines soft and graceful. As I
move forward, new landscapes open up continuously: views park-like
and picturesque. Gangs of buffalo, herds of antelope, and droves of
wild horses, mottle the far vistas. Turkeys run into the coppice, and
pheasants whirr up from the path.
Where are the owners of these lands, of these flocks and fowls? Where
are the houses, the palaces, that should appertain to these lordly parks?
I look forward, expecting to see the turrets of tall mansions spring up
over the groves. But no. For hundreds of miles