Author's Note

So often the heroes we read about were soldiers, or explorers, or scientists, or patriots. When I learned that John Wesley Powell was all of these and more, I wanted to write about him. All the events in this story are true. Young Wes really was stoned by older boys, and more than once, according to the record. This record does not name the bullies, and so I had to make up their names and what they probably said.

George Crookham did teach young Wes as I described. Try reading a few pages of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and see how difficult it is. And since Powell kept no diaries of his Mississippi River trips, I had to be guided by the journal of another naturalist who ventured on the river.

During the Civil War, Powell really did have dinner with General Grant and asked the favor which the General so good-humoredly granted. I learned about Powell's injury and operation from books other men wrote about him. For the exploration of the Colorado River and the desert country, I followed Powell's own accounts closely and checked them against others written by his companions and by his two able biographers, Wallace Stegner and William Culp Darrah.

Some men tried to say Powell was scared while running the Grand Canyon. I searched for evidence of this, but never found the slightest hint, even in the writings of those who made the fearsome journey with him.

Chapter 14 is imagined, but founded on real fact. Powell delighted in taking young lads on excursions, and introducing them to the exciting world of natural history.

Marian T. Place