McCarter, Margaret Hill: Winning the Wilderness. V1. 30 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
So over countless forms they hurried to the river’s brink for water. Thaine and Tasker and Boehringer were accustomed to muddy streams, for the prairie waters are never clear. But Goodrich from Boston had a memory of mountain brooks. The Pennsylvania man, McLearn, the cold springs of the Alleghanies, and for Binford there was old Broad Ripple out beyond Indianapolis. All these men came down with dry canteens to the Peiho by Yang-Tsun. The river was choked with dead Chinamen and dead dogs and horses. They must push aside the bodies to find room to dip in their canteens.