Book excerpt: "'Buffalo!' The old horseman struggled to his feet and boldly began his toast with glass held high, his weather-worn visage conspicuous in the room full of young men. Then 'BUFFALO,' this time more quietly. Then, after a long pause, 'buffalo,' almost in a whisper..." Thus Garrett Wilson introduces his epic account of the 1870s, a decade that saw unprecedented changes come to the Great Plains of North America: famine, fire, and pestilence--the disappearance of the buffalo--the last stand of the Sioux and the Metis--the Boundary Survey and the "March West" of the North-West Mounted Police--men like Dumont, Walsh, Macleod, and Sitting Bull--all encompassed within a brief 10 years, which saw the disappearance of the Old West, and the birth of a new society. Told with wit, sensitivity, and panache, Frontier Farewell explodes old myths and brings new perspectives to this pivotal era in the development of the North American West.