1919. Munroe worked as a surveyor's helper on an expedition that crossed the great southwest from Kansas to California to find a route for the first transcontinental railroad. During this time he claimed he helped fight Indians and in one scrimmage he was wounded while eight of his comrades were killed. He met such famous characters of the old west as Custer, Wild Bill Hickok, and Kit Carson. At War with Pontiac begins: A glorious midsummer day was drawing to a close; its heat had passed; the tall forest trees, whose leaves were pleasantly rustled by the cool breeze of approaching night, flung a bridge of tremulous shadows across the surface of Loch Meg, and all nature was at peace. The tiny lake, though bearing an old-world name, was of the new world, and was one of the myriad forest gems that decked the wilderness of western New York a century and a half ago.