He has been the companion of
trappers and frontiersmen, the friend and comrade of Indians, sleeping
side by side with them in their wigwams, running the rapids in their
canoes, and riding with them in the hunt. He has met and overcome the
panther and the grizzly single-handed, and has pursued the flying cimmaron
to the snowy summits of the Rocky Mountains, and brought back its crescent
horns as a trophy. He has fought and slain the gray wolf with no other
weapons than his hands and teeth; and at night he has lain concealed by
lonely tarns, where the wild coyote came to patter and bark and howl at
the midnight moon. His name and achievements are familiar to the dwellers
in those savage regions, whose estimate of a man is based, not upon his
social and financial advantages, but upon what he is and can do. Yet he is
not one who wears his merit outwardly. His appearance, indeed, is
striking; tall and athletic, broad-shouldered and stout-limbed, with the
long, elastic step of the moccasined Indian, and something of the Indian's
reticence and simplicity. But he can with difficulty be brought to allude
to his adventures, and is reserved almost to the point of ingenuity on all
that concerns himself or redounds to his credit.
Pages:
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242