getting narrower and narrower, till there wasn't room to turn a horse 

 'round and at last I came slap up agin a wall, straight up and down — a 

 bird couldn't fly over it." In great excitement the youngsters exclaimed: 

 "Why! Jim, how did you get out?" "Never did get out; they killed me." 



After this legendary collection of Bridger's tales had been written, I 

 received a copy of a Life of Bridger, by J. C. Alter, in which somewhat 

 different versions of the stories are recorded. 



In 1877 "Uncle" Jack Robinson, a friend and associate of Bridger's, 

 was still living at the post, though very old and infirm. He had a formula 

 which I have frequently found useful and appropriate. When any one 

 told him anything, he would say: "Well, mebbe it is, but I don't 

 believe it." 



By far the most prominent of the civilians at the post was Judge 

 Carter, the postmaster, post-trader, cattle owner, and capitalist generally. 

 He was, I think, the first to drill for oil in the mid-continental field; oil 

 was found, but I doubt if the Judge made anything out of it. He was a 

 venerable looking man, with a long, white beard, and was a great 

 admirer and disciple of Herbert Spencer, despising the theologians. 

 "Why!" he would say, in his soft, gentle voice, "this country could set 

 up a dozen Jewish Heavens and supply them all with chalcedony and 

 jasper, chrysoprase and sard." 



The Uttle hotel, where we put up while our equipment was being got 

 together, was kept by an Englishman, whose name, I think, was Rickard. 

 If his tales were true, he had come through some terrible experiences. He 

 said that the company with which he had come West, some twenty years 

 before, contained some very reckless and hardhearted men; one of these, 

 meeting an Indian squaw on the plains, had killed her "for fun." That 

 night their camp was surrounded by an overwhelming force of Indians, 

 who demanded that the murderer should be given up to them, threaten- 

 ing that, otherwise, they would wipe out the party. The criminal was 

 surrendered and the Indians proceeded to flay him alive in full view of 

 the horrified camp. There is nothing impossible about this story, but 

 whether our host actually witnessed this and other frightful atrocities, is 

 another question. 



Here I first heard of a man, a conductor on the Union Pacific Rail- 

 way, whose acquaintance I afterwards made and who had survived 

 scalping by the Indians. He had been one of a construction gang, en- 

 gaged in laying the rails, when they were surprised by a war party of 

 Indians, who killed all of them except this one individual and he lay on 

 the ground motionless, feigning death. The warriors then scalped their 



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