The boy felt happy and excited. He liked the sweet air and the delightful chill of it at night no matter what the daytime heat had been. He would nev… - Harold Keith

In the old days, an announcement by a boy that he wanted to try out for a distance event on his school track team brought a gasp of horror from his parents and his friends. But Tom Jones, veteran cross-country coach at the University of Wisconsin, recently announced that only one man had died of the ninety-two Wisconsin runners who had lettered at the four-to-five mile distance since 1905, and that one was killed in an automobile accident! In 1910 an old-fashioned doctor advised Clarence DeMar, the marathon runner, that he would die from heart trouble if he kept on running. Two years later the doctor himself died from a heart attack and today DeMar, over fifty years of age, is still alive and healthy and running marathons. So any normal boy can expect to improve his health by running. It is important, however, to undergo at first a careful physical examination, and then not to overstrain after he has started running.

Few Americans know how savagely the Civil War raged or how strange and varied were its issues in what is now Oklahoma and the neighboring states of Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas. Rifles for Watie was faithfully written against the historical backdrop of the conflict in this seldom-publicized, Far-Western theater.

"I jined up fer a frolic," laughed a tall fellow from Republic County with warts on his face. He turned to his messmate, a blond boy from Fort Scott. "Why did you come in?" "Wal, by Jack, because I thought the rebels was gonna take over the whole country." "I joined up because they told me the rebels was cuttin' out Union folks' tongues and killin' their babies. After I got here, I found out all it was over was wantin' to free the niggers," complained another, disgustedly. "I decided I'd jest as well be in the army as out in the besh. Now I'm about to decide I'd druther be in the bresh," snorted another. They were nearly all frowsy-headed, boot-shod, and lonely-looking, fresh from the new state's farms, ranches, and raw young prairie towns. Before the war ended, Kansas furnished more men and boys to the Union forces in proportion to its population than any other state. And all of them were volunteers.