It has been my privilege to spend my working years on the frontier.  I have known and served with commanders like Sherman, Sheridan, Miles, Custer and A.A.  Carr—­men who would be leaders in any army in any age.  I have known and helped to fight with many of the most notable of the Indian warriors.

Frontiersmen good and bad, gunmen as well as inspired prophets of the future, have been my camp companions.  Thus, I know the country of which I am about to write as few men now living have known it.

Recently, in the hope of giving permanent form to the history of the Plains, I staged many of the Indian battles for the films.  Through the courtesy of the War and Interior Departments I had the help of the soldiers and the Indians.

Now that this work has been done I am again in the saddle and at your service for what I trust will be a pleasant and perhaps instructive journey over the old trails.  We shall omit the hazards and the hardships, but often we shall leave the iron roads over which the Pullman rolls and, back in the hills, see the painted Indians winding up the draws, or watch the more savage Mormon Danites swoop down on the wagon-train.  In my later years I have brought the West to the East—­under a tent.  Now I hope to bring the people of the East and of the New West to the Old West, and possibly here and there to supply new material for history.

I shall try to vary the journey, for frequent changes of scenes are grateful to travelers.  I shall show you some of the humors as well as the excitements of the frontier.  And our last halting-place will be at sunrise—­the sunrise of the New West, with its waving grain-fields, fenced flocks and splendid cities, drawing upon the mountains for the water to make it fertile, and upon the whole world for men to make it rich.

I was born on a farm near Leclair, Scott County, Iowa, February 26, 1846.  My father, Isaac Cody, had emigrated to what was then a frontier State.  He and his people, as well as my mother, had all dwelt in Ohio.  I remember that there were Indians all about us, looking savage enough as they slouched about the village streets or loped along the roads on their ponies.  But they bore no hostility toward anything save work and soap and water.

We were comfortable and fairly prosperous on the little farm.  My mother, whose maiden name was Mary Ann Leacock, took an active part in the life of the neighborhood.  An education was scarce in those days.  Even school teachers did not always possess it.  Mother’s education was far beyond the average, and the local school board used to require all applicants for teachers’ position to be examined by her before they were entrusted with the tender intellects of the pioneer children.