I saw Washakie many times before he died. We were always brothers. When I lived in Bloomington, Bear Lake County, Idaho, the chief often came and stayed with me. He was always made welcome in my home, and his lodge was always open to me. During the time of Chief Joseph’s War, Washakie brought his band and camped for some months near my ranch on Bear River; and every day he would come to get the news of the war. My wife would read the paper and I would interpret it for the Indians.
While this war was on, the whites would not sell ammunition to the Indians without a letter of recommendation, or “Tabop,” as they called it. The Indians all came to me for these letters. My home for years was their headquarters. They would have eaten me out of house and home if the ward authorities had not come to my rescue and helped to feed these Red Brethren.
“I would … ride the round of the traps.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE TRAPPING WITH AN INDIAN
But the Indians were not always a burden. They sometimes gave me good help. At one time in particular I found an Indian who proved a friend in need. It was during the winter of 1866–7, the year after I had brought my wife from Oxford, Idaho, to Bloomington.
“Hogitsi,” a Shoshone Indian, with his family, was wintering in the town at the time. The whites called him “Hog,” but he hadn’t a bit of the hog in his nature. I found him to be one of the best Indians I ever knew.
After I had got well acquainted with him, he proposed that we try trapping to make some money. I was hard up; my family was destitute of food and clothing, for I had hard luck that summer, so I was ready to try anything.
We set to work over in Nounan Valley on a little stream about fifteen miles from home. The results were very encouraging. At the end of the first week we came back with sixty dollars’ worth of furs. It was the easiest money I ever made in my life. Such success made us ready to try again.
