I am writing about myself standing in the garden of a large house — but by no means a manor-house — between the Hopkins River and Russells Creek. Perhaps my reader is wondering where Russells Creek and the Hopkins flow, and how far away those two streams are from the Dog Ear and Ideal. And yet, whatever atlases I refer to, my reader will still think the worst. He will think I am writing about myself standing among gentle slopes and peaceful hills in Tolna County, or even on the plains of Szolnok County.

I am not sorry for you, reader, if you think of me as deceiving you. I can hardly forget the trick that you played on me. You allowed me to believe for a long time that I was writing to a young woman I called my editor. Safe in the depths of your glass-walled Institute, you even had me addressing you as reader and friend. Now, you still read and I still write but neither of us will trust the other.

Trust me or not, reader, but whatever I write about myself having done. I will always write about places. I will name the streams on either side wherever I am; I will match landscape with landscape.

I am writing about myself standing in a garden between the Hopkins River and Russells Creek. How can I show you the way, reader, from Ideal, South Dakota, to the few steep, coastal hills between the Hopkins and Russells Creek? Perhaps, you think, the way leads downstream along the Dog Ear, downstream again along the White, and then on down the Missouri. But that way leads towards the sea, as you well know, reader. And you in the place whereHinterland will issue from and I who first wrote to you from such an utterly landlocked place as the Great Alfold — you and I are not going so readily towards the sea.

Perhaps the way ought to lead us across the Missouri before it widens. I have looked ahead, reader, and that way is promising. I have looked ahead and seen