McCarter, Margaret Hill: Vanguards of the Plains. V1. 29 Jan 2010
 

McCarter, Margaret Hill, 1860-1938. Topeka author Margaret Hill McCarter became well known during the early 20th century for her novels set against a background of the Kansas Prairies. Such works as The Price of the Prairie, which dealt with settlers in post Civil War Kansas and A Wall of Man, which portrayed the struggle between free-state and pro-slavery factions, appealed to readers who appreciated her detailed descriptions of the landscape and events.
Kansas Historical Society


Excerpt
It might have been but yesterday that I saw it all: the glinting sunlight on the yellow Missouri boiling endlessly along at the foot of the bluff; the flood-washed sands across the river; the tangle of tall, coarse weeds fringing them, edged by the scrubby underbrush. And beyond that the big trees of the Missouri woodland, so level against the eastern horizon that I used to wonder if I might not walk upon their solid-looking tops if I could only reach them. I wondered, too, why the trees on our side of the river should vary so in height when those in the eastern distance were so evenly grown.