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Storm and Stampede on the Chisholm

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In 1883, when Hubert Collins was 11 years old and living in Iowa, he talked his father into letting him leave school to join his older brother on his recently acquired ranch just off the Chisholm Trail where it crosses the Cimarron River (present-day Dover, OK). He stayed at brother Ralph's Red Fork Ranch for 15 months before returning to Iowa. The experiences garnered there would last a lifetime, and later in life, after a successful career as an internationally respected engineer, and having seen the country change so much, he decided an account of what he had seen and learned during his youthful Red Fork Ranch days was worth writing. He spent four years gathering information, writing to relatives and acquaintances of that time period and conducting research in the Oklahoma Historical Society, before beginning his task.

Because of his initial youthful perspective and the passage of time, probably some of what Collins writes may not be absolutely true. He mentions, for example, some visitors to the ranch by name, but further investigation indicates Collins must have been mistaken. But this really doesn't matter because it's not the specifics of names and dates that Collins is interested in, but in life in general for a boy (and the adults) around him. The ranch was near the Darlington Indian Agency and he spent much time among the Indians, mainly Cheyenne and Arapahoe, playing with and befriending Indian kids his own age. He admires and respects the Indian ways, a view he carried over into his adult years. Because of its location the ranch was a busy place, and Collins's observations are fresh and lively. Although written as an adult, he tries to relate events as he must have witnessed them as a pre-teen; maybe in his mind's eye that perspective never left him. And that is the biggest satisfaction with the book, the novel, innocent-in-youth vision he brings to his chronicle. The book is wonderfully entertaining and will be enjoyed by all who like reading about the Old West on the Plains just before settlement would begin in earnest.