"Campion was an ardent and skilful trapper, the descriptions of the hardships and perils are excellent." - The Academy, 1878

"With his scalp still safe upon his head, we must say that he had more luck than he deserved." - Saturday Review, 1878

"Irresistibly attractive to all who like good stories thoroughly well told." -NY Times, 1880

"Campion knew George Catlin...he was born hunter, trapper, pioneer." - London Society, 1878

Growing up near the Missouri River in what is now Kansas, J. S. Campion had listened with delighted attention to George Catlin talk about Western life and had spent hours poring over his folio of drawings. To Campion, a born hunter, it seemed that to become a buffalo hunter was a wild and glorious, if most unattainable ambition.

Sometime in the 1850s, Campion would set out on his own wild career in the Far West---one which Catlin would have regarded with keen appreciation. His descriptions of beaver-trapping and buffalo hunting by the Republican River, and his experiences with Indians, as related in his 1878 book "On the Frontier," are sure to fire the imagination, the scene being laid at one time in the Rocky Mountains; at another, in the Grand Prairie ; at another, in the dangerous valleys and passes of Arizona.

Campion's hunting and trapping party consisted of five—himself and a friend, two hired backwoodsmen, and a clever well-educated ne'er-do-well, who volunteered for the office of cook to the party. During this time, Campion would suffer terribly at the hands of the Indians, who destroyed all the property he had amassed; but he seemed to possess wonderful powers of recuperation. There might be buffalo, prairie hen, and venison one day; but another day he would be wet, cold, hungry, and forlorn, and have to 'tighten the waist-belt to the last hole.' Bears, wolves, pumas, lynxs, at times proffered their companionship. On one occasion he was nearly starved; on another he was snowed up. On one or two occasions he was nearly shot; on one or two more nearly eaten.

Campion was close friends with the Delaware chief John Connor and describes how a combined force of 200 Delawares and Pottowatomies attacked a Cheyenne and Kiowa raiding party:

"Captain Connor took the field with something over two hundred men, the pick and flower of Delaware and Pottowattomie chivalry. The plan of attack was as ably executed as conceived, and a scene of the wildest description ensued, the surprised enemy, taken at every disadvantage, aroused out of sleep by savage yells. He tore through them like an avalanche, opened out right and left, and scattered his foes as a tornado would a forest's autumn leaves..."

Later Campion and his party would continue their adventures in the debateable unsettled territory which lay between Mexico and the SouthWestern States, where they would encounter Utes, Mohaves, and Apache raiding parties.

In describing one Apache raid on a ranchero, Campion writes:

"During the storm a solitary Apache climbed unperceived the corral's wall. Crouched quietly in a corner he patiently waited for day. Morn broke, the look-outs have reported 'No Indians in sight.' The gate is opened, the stock commences to pour out; the gateway gets full of them, to shut it would be impossible. Up springs the Apache, vaults on the nearest horse, with one hand clutches his mane, with the other waves his red blanket in the air, yells like a demon, and en masse every 'hoof' stampedes..."

Among the varied adventures recorded in the book one of the most exciting and perilous was an expedition made by the author, with four companions only, to a band of hostile Apaches, with the view of negotiating peace.