Chief of Scouts | Page 8

the tributaries of the Green river
we were traveling along one afternoon, we came in sight of a band of
Ute Indians. They were in camp. We were in about a half a mile of
them when we first saw them; they were directly to the north of us, and
they discovered us at the same time we saw them. As soon as the
Sighewashes saw the Utes they stopped, and two of the Sighewashes
rode back to us and said in Spanish, "We go see Utes," and they rode
over to the Ute camp. Probably they were gone a half hour or more,
when they returned, and we surely watched every move the Utes made
till the Sighewashes came back to us. When they came back they were
laughing and said to us, "Utes heap good." Then I was satisfied that we
were in no danger.
We traveled on some five or six miles when we came to a nice little
stream of water where there was fine grass. I said to the boys, "We'll
camp here. Now you boys unpack the animals and take them out to
grass, and I will go and kill some meat for supper."
I picked up my gun and started; I didn't go over a quarter of a mile till I
saw four Bison cows, and they all had calves with them. I crawled up in
shooting distance and killed one of the calves. At the crack of my gun

the cows ran away. I commenced dressing the calf and here came four
of my Sighewash Indians running to me, and when they saw what I had
killed, I believe they were the happiest mortals that I ever saw.
As soon as I got the insides out I told them to pick up the calf and we
would go to camp. Some of them picked up the carcass and others
picked up the entrails. I told them we did not want the entrails. One of
the Indians spoke up and said, "Heap good, all same good meat". I
finally persuaded them to leave the insides alone.
When we got back to camp, the boys had a good fire, and it was not
long before we had plenty of meat around the fire, and I never saw
Indians eat as they did that night. After they had been eating about an
hour, Jonnie West said to me, "Will, you will have to go and kill more
meat, or we won't have any for breakfast."
We soon turned in for the night and left the Indians still cooking. In the
morning we were surprised to see the amount of meat they had got
away with. What they ate that night would have been plenty for the
same number of white men three or four days. The nature of the Indian
is to eat when he has the chance and when he hasn't he goes without
and never complains.
For the next three days we traveled through a country well supplied
with game, especially Elk, Deer, and black bear. It was now late in the
summer and all game was in a fine condition, it was no unusual thing to
see from twenty five to a hundred Elk in a band. I have never seen
since that time so many Elk with so large horns as I saw on that trip,
which convinced me that there had been no white hunters through that
part of the country before.
In traveling along there were times we were not out of sight of deer for
hours; consequently we never killed our game for supper until we went
into camp, and as a rule, the boys always picked me to get the meat
while they took care of the horses. I remember one evening I was just
getting ready to start out on my hunt. I asked the boys what kind of
meat they wanted for supper. Jonnie West said, "Give us something
new." Well, I answered, "How will a cub bear do?" They all answered,

"That is just what we want." That moment I turned my eyes to the south,
and on a ridge not more than three hundred yards from camp, I saw
three bears eating sarvis berries. I was not long in getting into gun shot
of them. There was the old mother bear and two cubs. I had to wait
several minutes before I could get a good sight on the one I wanted, as
they were in the brush and I wanted a sure shot. I fired and broke his
neck; he had hardly done kicking before Jonnie West and some of the
Indians were there. We made quick work getting the meat to camp and
around the fire cooking, and it was as fine a