Wild Life in the Far West: Being the Personal Adventures of a Border Mountain Man. Captain James Hobbs

      WILD LIFE IN THE FAR WEST.

       CHAPTER I.

      I WAS born on the 10^th of May, 1819, in the Shaw- nee Nation, on the Big Blue creek, a tributary of The Missouri river and about twenty-three miles from Independence. The place then known as Indian terri- tory is now better known as Jackson county, Missouri.

      Being one of a pair of twins, the chief care of me de- volved on a faithful old negro nurse who was one of my father' s slaves. My twin sister, who was brought up on her mother's breast, after weaning, looked so much whiter than I that my tanned and sunburnt complexion has been the occasion of many a joke from friends who laid it to my nursing from a negro.

      My mother died in 1825, when I was about seven years of age. My father married his second wife when was about thirteen years old, and she, being quite a young woman and high-spirited, commenced to rule the house after she had introduced the first one of a second crop of children. This made matters very uncomfort- able for me, but I contrived to amuse myself for three years longer at home or till the age of sixteen, when I struck out for myself, pretty much on my own hook,, resolved to hunt for furs with some company, or hunt Indians, or do anything else that would pay.

      While working on my father' s plantation I had be- come familiar with the rifle and shot gun, and indeed

       2

      18 BENT AND SAVERY.

      Had to provide nearly all the meat for the family ; but game was plenty and that was an easy task, much easier than pleasing the mistress who took no pains to give me any educational advantages. Though young, I was nearly full grown when I found an excellent chance to join a fur company that had just started out from St. Louis, under the lead of Charles Bent, and were going out to a fort and trading-post called Bent' s Fort, some three hundred miles south of Pike' s Peak on Big Arkansas river. The party consisted of about sixty men. The more prominent hunters were Charles Bent, Guesso Chauteau, William Savery, and two noted Indian trappers named Shawnee Spiebuck, and Shawnee Jake. Some of the party were agents of, and interested in, the Hudson' s Bay fur company, hav- ing their head-quarters at St. Louis. This was in 1835. As I shall have considerable to say of some of this party, a brief description of them may be of interest to the reader.

      Charles Bent, the leader of the party, and a mana- ger of the fur business at Bent' s Fort, was a native of St. Louis, Mo., and a brother of the famous Captain Bent who originated the theory called the " Thermal Gate- ways to the Pole." At the time I joined his party, he was about thirty-five years of age, light complexioned, heavily built, tending to corpulency. In all my ac- quaintance with him I always found him perfectly up- right in his dealings, both with his party and the Indi- ans. He commanded the confidence and respect of all the tribes he dealt with, and his honorable treatment of them prevented violence on their part.

      Savery, who was next in interest to Bent was a French Canadian a few years younger than Bent, and like him was a very fair and honorable man in all his

      SPIEBUCK. 19

      dealings. These two men were well calculated for In- dian traders, for they were respected as honest men, and would never furnish intoxicating liquors to the Indians for the purpose of making more advantageous bargains with them.

      Spiebuck was a noble looking Indian, full six feet high, had a high forehead, Roman nose, malicious looking black eye, and was rather lighter colored than most of the Shawnees who composed the party, who were all large, well-built men. He spoke English fluently, having been educated at a mission-school in Missouri. He retained, however, many of the In- dian peculiarities, among them his fondness for liquor and his roving disposition, so that we never could keep him at one thing long at a time. He was the best shot with a rifle, at long range, I ever saw.

      The Shawnees of the party wore buckskin pants and hunting-shirt, with fringes of buckskin strings along the seams of the legs and sleeves. They nearly all could speak English, but when by themselves they usually employed their own language. They were quiet and peaceable except when under the influence of liquor: then they needed just such a man as Bent to restrain them and keep them within bounds.

      Most of the white trappers wore a dress similar to that of the Shawnees, on account of its great durabili- ty, as it would last from three to four years, notwith- standing the very hard usage it received.

      The prospect to me was very pleasing. We were all mounted on horses, having some led mules and half a dozen one and two-horse carts to haul our provisions and bring in our furs, &c. It was a wild and lonely tramp. Before us were the vast plains, unbroken ex- cept here and there with a belt of timber, and we were

      20 ATTACKED BY PAWNEES.

      Following a mere trail, never seeing a house after leav- ing Independence. My capacity in the company was that of hunter, to provide fresh meat we needed on the route. John Batiste, a boy about my age, was mule- packer. We had proceeded, without adventure, until the night after crossing Pawnee Fork, between live and six hundred miles from Independence, our point of de- parture.