102 Rod, Gun, and Palette in the High Rockies 



Thursday the eighth. 



Fred was away early into the hills to the north to again take 

 up the search for the missing man. William and Jay followed 

 him shortly, still intent on elk. 



During the forenoon, the carcass of a large cow elk was 

 brought in by "Snowshoe," and butchered for the winter 

 meat supply. It appears that the salting and drying of elk 

 meat for this purpose is a regular practice of many ranchers in 

 this part of the country. 



There was a semi-clear sky at sundown, with a lovely pile 

 of cumulus clouds on the southern horizon, and a great deal of 

 snow gone from the warmth of mid-day, a prospect of cloud and 

 perhaps snow on the morrow. 



Some hours after supper William and Jay came in, having 

 ridden and trailed about thirty miles in the day, on a tremen- 

 dous track, which darkness compelled them to abandon within 

 a mile of our Tepee camp, as the animal was traveling, not 

 stopping to feed. Any number of minor chances presented 

 themselves, but as William expressed it: "I don't want to kill 

 another bull, merely for the sake of killing him: but only if he has 

 a bigger head than the one I have." Fred met them at the cabin 

 just as they left, with no news of the missing man, and proposing 

 to stay there all night. 



This evening the gathering at the Johnson ranch received a 

 notable addition in the person of Mr. Benjamin Franklin Frohman, 

 of Dillon, Montana, specifically, and of the West in general since 

 1864, in which year he crossed the plains in an emigrant train of 

 sixty-six wagons. A man of height, weight and presence ; with a 

 faintly grizzling brown beard and mustache, a heavy shock of 

 still black hair gives the lie to his confessed sixty-seven years. 

 "Ben" as by now he is familiarly called by all the party, is a living 

 witness to the health and youth conserving power of an active 

 life without-doors in the West. An Indian fighter of repute, 

 claiming thirty-seven scalps, and hoping to get a few more before 

 he quits, his point of view toward the primitive people of the plains 

 is essentially that of a man personally witness to acts of cold- 

 blooded treachery and cruelty on their part to those who had bene- 

 fitted them, and who has himself been compelled to defense against 

 attack unprovoked. To such a man the larger ethical aspects of 



