"Seventy years ago, when some of the events here recounted took place, Indians were Indians, and the plains were the plains indeed. In such surroundings the boy Wikis was born and grew up. The people that he knew well were those of his own camp. Once a year perhaps, for a few weeks, he saw the larger population of a great camp, but for the most part half a dozen families of the tribe, with the buffalo, the deer, the wolves, and the smaller animals and birds, were the companions with whom he lived and from whom he learned life's lessons. The incidents of this simple story are true." - Summary by Adapted from the Preface