The story starts in the city of St. Louis, towards the end of the summer of some year in the nineteenth century. Reid collects together a group of six men who would pay to take part in an expedition, camping and hunting, into the prairies. They take with them a couple of paid men, professionals who would give them very necessary guidance. They all make a pact that they would each tell a round of tales around the camp fire, such stories to be amusing and instructive.

Reid himself is something of a naturalist, as we can learn from his many other books. We are given these tales just as they are told, in good English if told by an educated man, and in the dialect of the less educated ones. This latter arrangement makes the checking of the OCR transcriptions a little difficult, but never mind.

What people may find a little tedious is Reid's habit of giving the naturalists' Latin names for the various animals and plants described.