Jan. i, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
11 
large camp of their enemies, and Colonel Bent 
and the traders were also especially anxious to 
avoid any collision at the fort. Each tribe would 
expect the trader to take its part and this he 
could not do without incurring the enmity of 
the other tribes. The wish of the trader was 
to be on good terms with all tribes and this 
William Bent accomplished with singular dis¬ 
cretion. Although he had a Cheyenne wife, he 
was on excellent terms, and always remained 
so, with the enemies of the Cheyennes. 
Both Fort St. Vrain and Fort Adobe, being 
built of adobes, lasted for a long time and their 
ruins have been seen until quite recently. Near 
the ruins of Fort Adobe two important fights 
have taken place to be referred to later. 
In the business of the fort, William Bent had 
the direction of the trade with the Indians, 
while his brother Charles seems to have had 
more to do with affairs in the Mexican settle¬ 
ments, until his death there at the hands of the 
Mexicans and Pueblos in the year 1847- It _ is 
not certain when St. Vrain, Lee and Benito 
Vasquez became partners in the business, nor 
how long they were interested in it. George 
and Robert Bent, who came out from St. Louis, 
certainly later than the two elder brothers, may 
have been partners, but there is nothing to show 
that they were so. Robert died in 1847. 
Some time before this George Bent went to 
Mexico and there married a Mexican girl by 
whom he had two children, a son and a daugh¬ 
ter. The son, Robert, went to school in St. 
Louis. George Bent was a great friend of 
Frank P. Blair, whom he appointed guardian 
for his children. He died of consumption at the 
fort about 1848 and was buried near his brother 
Robert in the graveyard which lay a short dis¬ 
tance northeast of the northeast bastion of the 
fort. The old tailor, a Frenchman, afterward 
planted cactus over George Bent’s grave to pro¬ 
tect it from the wolves and coyotes. Their re¬ 
mains were later removed to St. Louis. 
After the death of Charles Bent in 1847 Wil¬ 
liam Bent continued his work. Perhaps St. 
Vrain may have remained a partner for a time. 
Fitzpatrick speaks of ‘‘Messrs. Bent and St. 
Vrain’s post” in 1850. Bent was an active man 
and interested in many other projects besides 
the fort and trade with the Indians. He bought 
sheep and mules in New Mexico and drove them 
across the plains to the Missouri market. In 
the forties, in company with several other men, 
he secured a large land grant from the Mexican 
Government in the Arkansas Valley above the 
fort, and attempted to found a colony there. 
Mexican settlers were established on the lands. 
The colonists were inert, the Indians were hos¬ 
tile and from these and other causes the pro¬ 
ject proved a failure. In 1847 William Bent 
and St. Vrain drove a large herd of Mexican 
cattle to the Arkansas and wintered them in the 
valley near the fort, thus making the first step 
toward establishing the cattle industry, which 
many years later so flourished on the plains. 
Besides his lands near the fort, Bent had a fine 
farm at Westport (now Kansas City) in Mis¬ 
souri and a ranch south of the Arkansas in the 
Mexican territory. In 1846 he guided Colonel 
Price’s Missouri regiment across the plains to 
New Mexico and was so popular among the 
volunteer officers that they gave him the brevet 
of colonel, a title which stuck to him until the 
day of his death. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
A boy would be but half human if, in find¬ 
ing a cartridge, he should fail to experiment 
with it. He may carry it in his pocket, together 
with the fishhooks and marbles and bits of 
string, but sooner or later he will try to explode 
it. The absence of a gun to assist may com¬ 
plicate the problem, but a means will be found 
and trials made until success crowns his efforts 
or the then battered object is considered “no 
good.” A council of his playmates, however, 
is a necessity ere this discouraging conclusion 
is reached. Meanwhile there is no end of ex¬ 
citement while the proud owner tries first one 
plan, then another, his friends seeking partial 
safety behind some building or stone and peer¬ 
ing over at intervals, hoping to witness the ex¬ 
plosion which, in their imagination, will be a 
tremendous one. Perhaps they may even hear 
the bullet “whistle,” or it may pass near them 
or strike something, in which case there will 
be the further excitement attending efforts to 
recover and examine it. 
The boy of to-day cannot extract as much 
fun out of such an incident as often fell to the 
lot of those who attained the mischievous age 
shortly after the close of the Civil Mar, when 
rim-fire cartridges of large caliber were com¬ 
mon. To throw one of these against a large 
boulder or the stone abutment of a bridge near 
the old swimming hole was unalloyed joy, 
usually attended with immediate and often 
startling results. 
The thick-headed brass shell of to-day, with 
its protected primer seated deep in a pocket, is 
not easily exploded in the old way—for which 
let us give thanks—but at times even it furnishes 
excitement. A Pennsylvania boy recently tried 
to explode one by placing it on a car track, but 
in a city what boy could have foreseen the out¬ 
come? Even though the train that was to fur¬ 
nish a finale to the exciting period of waiting 
was rapidly approaching, there was time for a 
strange lad to walk into the danger zone. Of 
course the cartridge was exploded—at another 
time the jar of the train would have caused it 
to roll off the rail—and the stranger was badly 
wounded by the bullet. 
* * * 
Orin Belknap writes from Kettle Falls, Wash., 
as follows: Grizzly King’s “Top Rail” stories 
of Dec. 11 stir up old memories; so here goes. 
Concerning the old-time rifle barrels and the 
fortunate boy who was allowed to peep 
through the bore of one in its making, he 
seems to be talking of a boy about my size. 
But when he adds, “To-day better and far 
handsomer barrels may be seen in the armor¬ 
ies,” I wonder if ever he glimpsed one of the 
rifles of Hawken, of St. Louis, or of Gove, of 
Council Bluffs—one of the rifles made for the 
old-time mountain men of the buffalo dr.ys. 
They were works of art, and these men were 
artists in their line. Ask some old-timer. 
By the way, many of even the old-timers 
were ignorant of one little trick in the clean¬ 
ing of a rifle barrel which finished the job 
perfectly. After a thorough washing of the 
bore with hot and cold water, and the wiping 
dry of its grooves, the difficulty lay in thor¬ 
oughly drying the inside of the cylinder which 
was screwed into the breech and into which 
was screwed the nipple which held the gun cap. 
Many a misfire resulted from moisture cling¬ 
ing to the inside of cylinder or nipple. But 
the hunter, who in wiping dry the bore of his 
rifle barrel, had first dragged a live coal of 
fire from under the forestick of the old fire¬ 
place and laid his gun in position so the end 
of the nipple touched the coal as he drew his 
wiping stick back and forth, sucked the hot air 
from its glowing surface into the bowels of the 
old rifle, and finished his job in a style that 
left no chance for misfires or doubt concern¬ 
ing them. 
And his story of the three deer shot one 
after another under the impression that only 
one deer was being fired at, brought to mind 
the occasion when a similar thing happened 
to me—only in my own case the deer were 
running, and the first two were thought to be 
missed, when to my deep regret three deer 
were found piled almost in a heap when I had 
no need or wish for but one. 
And then, too, the never-ending tale of 
strange shots and their consequences. 
I wonder how many of the contributors or 
readers of Forest and Stream are in my fix? 
I have written occasionally for its pages for 
more than twenty-five years; yet an occur¬ 
rence or happening which fell to my lot in 
deer hunting nearly that long ago has never 
been written for publication, for, while abso¬ 
lutely true in every detail, it is of a nature al¬ 
most unbelievable, and my courage has never 
been sufficient to prompt me to offer it; and 
only my son who helped pack the deer in and 
who investigated the situation thoroughly, 
shares with me the knowledge of the strange 
occurrence. Around the fireside among those 
who know me, we talk it over, but the public 
—nix! 
* * * 
One day while following a brushy stieam I 
attempted to cross to the other side where there 
was a fairly open stretch and better wading, but 
the handiest place was filled with limbs and 
stones and the current was too swift to be nego¬ 
tiated, so, grasping some willows with one hand 
I kept the rod free with the other and felt my 
way along the bed. The willows hung low, and 
one branch especially seemed to rub against my 
face and neck with a persistency that was an¬ 
noying when both hands were occupied. Down 
around a jutting bank I went, only to find the 
water too deep for my waders, and turning back 
I came face to face with a big water snake 
twined about a willow, and realized that it was 
this that had been caressing my neck a few 
moments before. It was harmless, of course, 
but I for one do not care to have snakes of any 
sort so near me, and dislodged this one with a 
stick. 
Grizzly King. 
