I found a nice double book for $2.99 at Goodwill a while back. "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman" and "The Wilderness Hunter" by Theodore Roosevelt. It was written a few years after the time frame delt with on this board but he describes an old hunter that was around during the "mountain man era". In the latter book he describes an old hunter he knew, ". . .I reached the sheltered coulie where, with long poles and bark, the hunter had built his tepee--wigwam, as eastern woodsmen would have called it. It stood in a loose grove of elms and boxalders; from the branches of the nearest trees hung saddles of frozen venison. The smoke rising from the funnel-shaped top of the tepee showed that there was more fire than usual within; it is easy to keep a good tepee warm, though it is so smokey that no one therein can stand upright. As I drew reign the skin door was pushed aside, and the hard old face and dried, battered body of the hunter appeared. He greeted me with a surley nod, and a brief request to 'light and hev somethin' to eat'- the invarible proffer of hospitality on the plains. He wore a greasy buckskin shirt or tunic and an odd cap of badger skin, beneath which strayed his tangled hair; age, rheumatism, and the many accidents and incredible fatigue, hardship, and exposure of his past life had crippled him, yet he still possessed great power of endurance, and in his seamed, weather scarred-face his eyes burned fierce and piercing as a hawk's. Ever since early manhood he had waged savage private war against half the Indian tribes of the north; and had wedded wives in each of the tribes of the other half. A few years before this time the great buffalo heards had vanished, and the once swarming beaver had shared the same fate; the innumerable horses and horned stock of the cattlemen, and the daring rough riders of the ranches, had supplanted alike the game and the red and white wanders who had followed it with such fierce rivalry. When the change took place the old fellow, with failing body powers, found his life-work over. He had little taste for the career of the desperado, horse-thief, highwayman, and man-killer, which not a few of the old buffalo hunters adopted when their legitimate occupation was gone; he scorned still more the life of vicious and idle semi-criminality of his former companions who were of weaker mould, Yet he could not do regular work. His existance had been one of excitement, adventure,and restless roaming, when it was not passed in lazy ease; his times of toil and peril varied by fits of brutal revelry. He had no kin, no ties of any kind. He would accept no help, for his wants were very few, and he was utterly self-reliant. He got meat, clothing, and bedding from antelope and deer he killed; the spare hides and venison he bartered for what little else he needed. So he built him his tepee in one of the most secluded parts of the Bad Lands, where he led the life of solitary hunter, awaiting in grim lonelessness the death which he knew to be near at hand."
I really liked the way Teddy could use words to make you feel like you were right beside him on his adventures. (I did feel like he could have left out about 90% of the commas though). I hope this quote is not too long but it was just part of one paragraph. I hope you enjoy reading it, I did not enjoy typing it!
JEB/Ms
I really liked the way Teddy could use words to make you feel like you were right beside him on his adventures. (I did feel like he could have left out about 90% of the commas though). I hope this quote is not too long but it was just part of one paragraph. I hope you enjoy reading it, I did not enjoy typing it!
JEB/Ms
