It was near Resting Springs Ranch while Phi Lee owned it that Jacob Breyfogle, of lost mine fame, was scalped by Hungry Bill’s tribesmen. The story is told in another chapter.
Phi Lee’s brother, Cub Lee, who added spicy pages to the annals of Death Valley country, built the first home erected at Shoshone—an adobe which still stands. It was long the home of the squaw, Ann Cowboy. Another brother of Phi Lee was known as “Shoemaker” because he roamed the desert as a cobbler. All were squaw men.
Cub Lee established a reputation for keeping his word and it was said no one ever disputed it and lived. Indians over in Nevada were giving a “heap big” party. His squaw wanted to go. Cub didn’t. “You stay home,” he ordered. “If you go, I’ll kill you.” He rode away and upon returning, discovered she was absent. He leaped on his cayuse, went to the party and found her. Whipping out his gun he killed both wife and son, blew the smoke out of his pistol and leisurely rode away.
But the Nevada officials thought Cub Lee was too meticulous about keeping his word and Cub had a brief cooling off period in the pen.
Pegleg Smith made Resting Springs his headquarters for the greatest haul in the history of California horse stealing and reached Cajon Pass before the theft was discovered. These horses were driven into Utah and there sold to emigrants, traders, and ranchers. Smith may be said to be the inventor of the Lost Mine, as a means of getting quick money. The credulous are still looking for mines that existed only in Pegleg’s fine imagination.
Thomas L. Smith was born at Crab Orchard, Kentucky, October 10, 1801. With little schooling, he ran away from home to become a trapper and hunter, and following the western streams eventually settled in Wyoming. He married several squaws, choosing these from different tribes, thus insuring friendly alliance with all.
He had been a member of Le Grand’s first trapping expedition to Santa Fe and was an associate of such outstanding men as St. Vrain, Sublette, Platte, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, the merchant Antoine Rubideaux (properly Robedoux) of St. Louis. He spoke several Indian languages and earned the gratitude of the Indians in his area by leading them to victory in a battle with the Utes. Able and likable, he also had iron nerves and courage. His morals, he justified on the ground that his were the morals of the day.
J. G. Bruff, historian, whose “Gold Rush-Journal and Drawings” is good material for research, met Smith on Bear River August 6, 1849, and wrote in his diary: “Pegleg Smith came into camp. He trades whiskey.” Actually he traded anything he could lay his hands on.
While trapping for beaver with St. Vrain on the Platte, Smith was shot by an Indian, the bullet shattering the bones in his leg just above the ankle. He was talking with St. Vrain at the moment and after a look at the injury, begged those about to amputate his leg. Having no experience his companions refused. He then asked the camp cook to bring him a butcher knife and amputated it himself with minor assistance by the noted Milton Sublette.
Smith was then carried on a stretcher to his winter quarters on the Green River. While the wound was healing he discovered some bones protruding. Sublette pulled them out with a pair of bullet molds. Indian remedies procured by his squaws healed the stump and in the following spring of 1828 he made a rough wooden leg. Thereafter he was called Pegleg by the whites and We-he-to-ca by all Indians.