1 took my bird dog. old Nig, and told the Indians I would go and kill 
some quails. I had not gone far until I saw an opossum. I shot it 
and killed a mess of quail and returned to camp. When I arrived 
and the Indians saw the opossum, 1 thought they were talking awfully 
disgusted. Joe Mack said, “What did you kill the opossum for? 
“Why,” I said, “isn’t he good to eat?" “No.' he said, “a dog 
won’t eat an opossum and besides it is a sure sign of bad luck to kill 
an opossum. You see that one out there (pointing his finger) ; that 
is one we burned to death when we built our camp fire in that hollow 
log. We will certainly have bad luck on this trip.” I took the 
opossums and threw them out of sight of our camp. That night Pecan 
had left his coat lying on the log in which the camp fire was started 
and during the night the fire spread down the log and burned Pecan’s 
coat. The next morning when this was discovered Joe said, “What 
did I tell you about killing an opossum being bad luck? You see 
now it has started.” 
While we were eating breakfast we saw two Indians traveling 
on a blind road which led to Bull Wilson’s cabin. They stopped a 
minute or two and talked in Indian and then proceeded toward Bull 
Wilson’s cabin. I could see the Indians were uneasy so I asked what 
was the matter. Joe told me that old Bull Wilson, the chief of the 
Delawares, as he left the Indian dance the night before had remarked 
that they would never see him again alive as he was going to the 
happy hunting ground and the Indians were trailing him for fear 
that he would kill himself. They had no more than finished telling 
me when I saw the two Delawares who were trailing him come 
running so fast their plaited hairs stood straight out behind. As they 
reached camp they talked with the Shawnees for five minutes, then 
they left. Seeing something had happened, 1 enquired of Joe and he 
said that Bull Wilson had tied the trigger of his gun to his big toe 
with a string and had blown his head off. This made me a little 
uneasy as I thought they might think that we killed him. When I 
voiced my fears to Joe he said, “No, they wouldn’t think that.” 
In a few hours several Delaware Indians drove up in a two-horse 
wagon and there were others on horseback. They laid the corpse of 
their chief in the wagon. It was a sad affair. 
As the Delawares returned we followed behind to their village. 
I asked Joe what w T e would do now the man whom we had come to 
see was dead. He said, “They will elect another chief and we will 
go ahead with our business.” The corpse was laid under an open 
shelter adjoining their council house and for three days the Indians 
kept up a continual beating of tom-tom drums, day and night, during 
which time I took my bird dog and hunted quails as they were near 
the village by the hundreds. The Shawnees and I had our camp 
to ourselves, and many of the Indians I had previously, hunted with 
when Bill Parrish and I had visited their village 14 years hence, 
came to camp and would ask me many questions about trapping and 
what 1 found out about the Texas home. 
— 80 
