Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far WestDrannan, William F.
History
Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West
Drannan, William F.
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America -- Wars
Charlie Jones, hearing the two shots and Johnnie yelling for me to
run, came to the scene and had no little fun with me for running
from so small a bear, saying: "If a little bear like that were to
come at me, I would take it by the tail and beat its brains out
against a tree."
By the time the boys got the bear dressed, I had recovered
sufficiently from my run and excitement to help carry the meat to
the cabin, which was only a few rods away, as in our foot-race we
had been running in direction of the camp. The boys had a great
deal of sport at my expense, and many times during the winter I
was reminded of the bear hunt, in which the bear hunted me.
After we had got everything nicely fixed up in our new quarters,
Johnnie West one evening got down his sachel, took out a book and
sat and read till bed time. The following evening when he took the
book up again, I asked him what he was reading, and he said,
"Robinson Crusoe." I asked him why he did not read aloud so the
rest of us could hear, and he did read aloud until bed time. I
told him I would give anything if I could read as he did. So he
said if I would try to learn, he would teach me to read that
winter as good as he could. I assured him there would be nothing
lacking on my part, so the next night I took my first lesson. At
that time I did not know all the letters, but I was determined to
learn to read. In a very short time I had learned all my letters,
and being possessed of a great memory, I learned very fast, and
Johnnie, seeing I was so determined in the matter, spared no pains
in teaching me, and by the next spring I could read Robinson
Crusoe myself. Having a start, I could learn of my own accord, and
to Johnnie West I am greatly indebted for the limited education I
now possess; and were he now living I could not express to him my
gratitude for his labors as my tutor in that lonely wilderness,
hundreds of miles from any white man's habitation. And, although
my education is quite limited, yet what little I do possess has
been of great value to me through life.
We had good success trapping this winter, until about the first of
January, when we had an unusual heavy fall of snow in the
mountains which drove all the game to the lowlands, nothing being
left that was fit for meat except a few mountain sheep, and the
snow made it very inconvenient getting around to attend to the
traps. In the latter part of February I asked Charlie Jones one
day to go down to Mountain Phil's camp and see if there was
anything that he wanted, as we had kept all the extra supplies at
our camp. Mountain Phil and his Klooch--that being the name he
called his squaw, which is also the Arapahoe name for wife--were
staying alone about ten miles further down the country from where
we were located.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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