UNCLE JOB WITHERSPOON:
AND HIS EXCITING ADVENTURES WITH THE BLACKFEET
NO more famous plainsman ever lived upon the Wyoming prairies than Uncle Job Witherspoon: a veteran of many an Indian battle: of several tussles with grizzly bears; and of frequent brushes with desperadoes and bad men who had taken to the hills in order to escape jail. Born about 1830, the old fellow was still hale and hearty in the year 1898, when he was piloting a number of young men through the intricacies of the Rocky Mountains; a region which he had lived in for many years.
“Well, youngsters,” said the veteran trapper to the party of young fellows who were upon an amateur hunting excursion, “when you’ve toted traps and peltries, and fit Injuns as long as I have, you’ll sartainly have considerable more experience than you have now.”
The old fellow was sitting with his back against a tree trunk, near the Grosventre River, and before him, in a semi-circle, lay five young men. All looked up at him eagerly, for they were in a country which had once been peopled by hostile redskins. It was now safe, for the savage tribesmen were upon reservations. Still, the air of romance lay over the beautiful land and added a zest to their expedition, which would have been absent had they been in a more unhistoric country.
“Ha! Ha! boys!” continued Uncle Job. “You think that you’ll have a mighty nice time out on the trapping grounds, and I ain’t going to say as how you won’t. But, take my word for it, ye’ll wish yourselves back in th’ settlements many a time afore you’ll get there. What with fighting and hiding from Injuns and them pesky grizzlies, and livin’ sometimes fer weeks together on nothin’ but pine cones an’ such trash as luck happened to throw in my way to keep body an’ soul together, my time used to be anything but ’specially agreeable, until I got used to it. Then I found it barely endurable. It’s a hard life, anyway, boys!”
“My, my, Uncle Job,” said one of the youngsters, “why, then, do you go back to the plains?”
The trapper laughed.
“Well, there, boys, yer have me, anyhow,” he answered. “Ter be right down honest with yer, I likes it. It’s a fact, as sure as dry prairie grass will burn, and I wouldn’t live a whole month in Saint Lewy (St. Louis) fer all th’ money there if I could not be allowed to spend th’ balance of my time in th’ mountain country. I’m used to it, youngsters, and city air is rank poison to me; besides, I’d spoil fer th’ want of a fight with some of th’ red varmints of Blackfeet, Pawnees, and Poncas; for, my boys, that’s the best part of the life on th’ plains. And now,” continued the old trapper, “I’ll tell yer about a fight, and a long battle it was, too, which I had with a party of them cowardly Black feet over on the Sweet-water River. It was something over twenty years ago, and one fall when I was trapping on the headwaters of the Columbia.”