tory dialogue between the "author" and the "Wanderer" who left the manuscript of the story with the former.
Some explanation of its large sale and of the way it caught on with the public of its day, may be found in the following enthusiastic opinion accredited to a "distinguished Reviewer":
Prairie Flower is indeed a remarkable book, and contains all the elements for present popularity and enduring fame. It is brim-full of life, love, passion, sentiment, humor, pathos; and its glowing descriptions, romantic incidents, daring adventures, fearful perils, thrilling exploits, dreadful accidents, and hair-breadth escapes—all run through and interweave with a deep, ingenious and intricate plot. The scene is on and over the Broad Prairies and Rocky Mountains of the mighty West, before the conquering tread of civilization had entered upon their vast solitudes, when roving tribes of Indians, and a few half-civilized hunters and trappers, traversed the lonely region, literally carrying their lives in their hands.
Everybody read it—everybody talked about it—and, for a time, not to have seen Prairie Flower, was to acknowledge yourself guilty of unpardonable ignorance . . .
In further account of it and of how it came to be so completely plagiarized, the author's daughter, Nora,—Lenore, wife of T. W. Clark—wrote to George H. Himes in 1861:
Oregon City
Aug. 2, 1861.
My dear Mr. Himes, In the article you have written in regard to the authorship of The Prairie Flower will you kindly include this statement. In a conversation with my father he says, the Wm. Johnson of whom Mr. Huston speaks is not the Wm. Johnson to whom he gave the manuscript. W . Johnson, my father found, came to Oregon in 1844, was a surveyor and surveyed the Hillsboro district. He left for the east in 1846, my father interesting him with the manuscript also giving him an outfit. If the records of the old survey can be found it will doubtless show Wm. Johnson's signature, therefore, corroborating my father's statement. My oldest brother, in Boise City—A. L. Richardson—may remember something about this matter. If you will write him he probably will tell you much more than he would me. Thanking you for the interest you have shown in this matter I remain
Very truly yours
NORA MOSS CLARK.
