Returning at dusk to Jim's cabin, we had word that "Buckskin Jim" Cutler was away from home and not expected back for several days. That ended my search for a crew, as there appeared to be no other eligible candidates. Of "Buckskin Jim" I was not to hear for twenty years, when it chanced that he was again recommended to me as the best available river-man on the upper Yellowstone. How that grizzled old pioneer fought his last battle with the Yellowstone on the eve of my push-off from Livingston for New Orleans I shall tell in proper sequence. Jim insisted on casting my "horryscoop" that night, just to give me an idea how things were going to shape for the next week or two. Going into a dark room that opened off the kitchen, he muttered away for some minutes in establishing communication with his "little friends up thar." Finally he called me in, closed the door, took my hand and talked balderdash for a quarter of an hour or more. I made note in my diary of only three of the several dozen things he told me. One was: "Young man, you have the sweetest mother in all the world"; another: "I see you struggling in the water beside a great black boat"; and the third: "You will meet a dark woman, with a scowling face, to whom you will become much attached." Now that "sweetest mother" stuff was ancient stock formula of the fortune-telling faker, and considering what Jim knew of my immediate plans it hardly seemed that he needed to get in touch with his "little friends up thar" to know that there was more than an even break that I was going to be doing some floundering around a big black boat; but how in the deuce did the old rascal know that I was going to meet the one and only "Calamity Jane" the following week in Livingston? Jim was bubbling with reminiscence when he came out of his averred trance, but only in a gentle and benevolent vein. He claimed that he was able to prove that Curley, the Crow Scout, was not a real survivor of the Custer massacre, but only witnessed a part of the battle from concealment in a nearby _coulée_. When I pressed him for details, however, he seemed to become suspicious, and switched off to a rather mild version of his meeting with Bob Ingersoll.