The white Indian boy - Elijah Nicholas Wilson

PLS:WDWIB-3

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

AN INTRODUCTION TO UNCLE NICK

If you ever go to the Yellowstone Park by way of Jackson’s Hole, you will most likely pass through Wilson, Wyoming. It is a picturesque little village situated at the foot of the Teton Mountains. A clear stream, rightly named Fish Creek, winds its way through the place. On the very edge of this sparkling mountain stream stands a log cabin. The cabin is so near the creek, indeed, that one might stand in the dooryard and catch fish. And this is what “Uncle Nick” Wilson, who lived in the cabin, has done many a time. That is a “true fish story,” I am sure, because I caught two lively trout myself last summer in this same creek only a few rods from the cabin.

Who was Uncle Nick Wilson? you ask. He was an old pioneer after whom this frontier town was named. He was the man, too, who wrote this story book. You would have liked Uncle Nick, I know. He was a rather short, round-faced man with a merry twinkle in his eyes. He took things easily; he spoke in a quiet voice; he was never too busy to help his neighbors; he liked a good joke; he was always ready to chat awhile; and he never failed to have a good story to tell, especially to the children.

Uncle Nick had one peculiarity. He did not like to take off his hat, even when he went into a house. I often wondered why, but I did not like to ask him. One day, however, some one told me the reason. It was because he had once been shot in the head with an arrow by an Indian. The scar was still there.

From outward appearances one would hardly have guessed that Uncle Nick’s life had been so full of exciting experiences. But when he was sitting about the campfire at night or at the fireside with a group of boys and girls, he would often get to telling his tales of the Indians and the Pony Express; and his hearers would never let him stop. My own two boys never got sleepy when Uncle Nick was in the house; they would keep calling for his stories again and again.