Brief Mention of Reprints

164 Western American Literature of exploiters to the present day. Accompanying her narrative is a very rare collection of photographs by Hegg, Nowell, Robinson, and others, most of which have never before been published. These pictures greatly enhance a text that effectively recounts the centuries-old mad scramble for Alaska’s wealth of fur, fish, gold, timber, coal, and other resources. Mr. Satterfield recounts one facet of the Alaska adventure story, which fits into the more comprehensive one of Mrs. Becker’s. He describes the efforts of daring bush pilots to open up Alaska, one of the richest areas on the planet, whose wealth was largely trapped by geography. ‘‘No place on earth,” he says, “needed airplanes more in 1922 than Alaska. The small towns were isolated from each other and the Outside by impassible mountains, path­ less plains of ice and snow that could be crossed only by dog team. The sea was the only exit, but it too could be as dangerous as the land.” This book is a celebration of the rare courage of such pioneer pilots in Alaska as Shell Simmons, Frank Barr, Russ Owens, Bob Ellis, Roy Jones, and others. The historic and often spectacular photographs are by Lloyd Jarman, and Alaskan— and one of those bush pilots, who carried a camera. Brief Mention of Reprints Two Thousand Miles on Horseback. By James F. Meline. (Albuquerque: Horn & Wallace, Publishers, 1966. x + 317 pages, appendices, $6.00.) Colonel Meline left Fort Leavenworth on a trip to Santa Fe in the summer of 1866, headed along the Platte and South Platte to Denver and Santa Fe with side trips to the Colorado mining camps and Albuquerque. He was apparently accompanied by a troop of cavalry though he is strangely silent about them, the camping, and other experiences along the way. The book is organized into thirty-six letters directed to some unspecified reader. His best letters are number ten on Denver, twenty-two and twenty-six on Santa Fe, and thirty on the three-day visit he had with Kit Carson. Meline has a good eye for descriptive detail, satiric comment, and humorous anecdotes. He likely took the trip so that he could write a travel book, and I have a feeling he was trying to improve on J. Ross Browne. The book was first pub­ lished by Hurd and Houghton in 1868. Reviews 165 The Plainsmen of the Yellowstone. By Mark H. Brown. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969. 480 pages, maps, index, Bison Book, $1.95.) Mr. Brown is also a military man; and like Meline, his biases show. He provides most meticulous details of army maneuvers in the Yellowstone basins and mountains of western Montana— and seems generally to approve. The Indians are referred to, however, with such epithets as “these red freebooters.” From the early explorers such as Larocque and the Vereudreyes, mountain men like Colter and Bridger, missionaries like DeSmet, he goes on to describe dudes like Sir George Gore, and an array of outlaws. The Indian wars are treated most fully, and there is good treatment of the road building and pioneering by farmers and cattlemen. The maps are especially clear and re­ lated to the text. The biographical note is very skimpy, and there is virtually no documentation beyond indicating dates of newspaper stories. The Old Oregon Country. By Oscar Osburn Winther. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969. xvi -f- 348 pages, illus., maps, biblio. and index; Bison Book, $2.95.) It is good to see this thoroughly authoritative Stanford University Press publication of 1950 back in print. It deals exhaustively with the fur trade, the agricultural frontier, the mineral empire, and all aspects of trade, trans­ portation, roads, and river travel in the old Oregon country: British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. The narrative reads well considering that it is heavily studded with factual detail. Dr. Winther’s work is strong exactly where Brown’s is weak— bibliography and documentation. Winther provides an unusually full bibliography of pri­ mary sources, and he documents every source precisely. What is, of course, more important, he uses his primary materials imaginatively to recreate the life of the...