The Scalp Hunters — Mayne Reid

Thomas Mayne Reid (1818 - 1883) was an Irish-American novelist. He wrote many adventure novels similar to those written by Robert Louis Stevenson. His adventures take place in locations such as in untamed settings in the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica. The Scalp Hunters romance set in northern Mexico was published in 1852. An excerpt from the beginning reads, "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!"