Part 1 The Forty-Niner, to pg. 54 Summary

Recognizing Apache being spoken in the Travelers' Club by a bleeding-heart anthropologist extolling the "noble savages," Sir Harry ("Flashy") Flashman, who neither condones nor condemns American policy towards the Indians, refuses to let pass the pompous professor's pious hypocrisy. Showing a missing patch of scalp, Flashy argues to the point of being shown the street. This confrontation sets him to reminiscing about the lost Wild West, and he resumes his memoirs, in New Orleans, in 1849. Flashy is on the verge of sailing to England when Capt. John Charity Spring stops in a tavern at the same time as Flashy's nemesis Peter Omohundro, who, in the second unnumbered chapter, recognizes him as a slave stealer, and calls for the law. Spring disarms Omohundro and runs him through with his own sword.

Flashy leads Spring to a...