'A book that will delight Miss Sandoz's wide and admiring audience' - K. Ross Toole, "History News". 'Sandoz's compressed and iron-biting style, which cuts to the bone, is well suited to clearing up the confusion between the two Sitting Bulls, confounded by legend and history; to telling of the hidden burial of Crazy Horse; and, to etching, in the story 'Peachstone Basket,' a sardonic and unforgettable picture of small-town life in the area [northwestern Nebraska and the Dakotas] around 1920' - "Library Journal".Here in one volume are Mari Sandoz's reminiscences of life in the Sandhills country; a study of the two Sitting Bulls (the Hunkpapa and the Oglala) and other Indian pieces; a novelette, Bone Joe and the Smokin' Woman; and, nine short stories, mostly with a rural setting, including "The Vine", her first to be published. Introduced by an autogiographical sketch of the author's early years and linked by a commentary derived from her letters, articles, and interviews, the separate pieces coalesce into an illuminating picture both of the Niobrara River country and of Mari Sandoz's emergence as a major American writer.