The book is authored by George W. Bell, an American doctor and state legislator in Arkansas. This, "This, being a true story, with the slight deviations necessary to the preservation of a due sense of proportion, it is deemed proper to casually introduce the characters on whom we must chiefly rely for the truthfulness or otherwise, of a most romantic adventure. In such an introduction, the Editor, or compiler—the "I" in these pages—necessarily appears, but to the Chronicler himself, who has no "poetic license," we must rely for the correctness of the recital..." is an excerpt from the first scene of the book.