He Added, "His Heart Is Good And
Kind, As Kind A Heart As Ever Beat.
He's a great enemy of his
own, but he's been living pretty quietly for the last four
years." At
The door of his den I took leave of Birdie, who had
been my faithful companion for more than 700 miles of traveling,
and of Evans, who had been uniformly kind to me and just in all
his dealings, even to paying to me at that moment the very last
dollar he owed me. May God bless him and his! He was obliged to
return before I could get off, and as he commended me to Mr.
Nugent's care, the two men shook hands kindly.[21]
[21]Some months later "Mountain Jim" fell by Evans's hand, shot
from Evans's doorstep while riding past his cabin. The story of
the previous weeks is dark, sad, and evil. Of the five differing
versions which have been written to me of the act itself and its
immediate causes, it is best to give none. The tragedy is too
painful to dwell upon. "Jim" lived long enough to give his own
statement, and to appeal to the judgment of God, but died in low
delirium before the case reached a human tribunal.
Rich spoils of beavers' skins were lying on the cabin floor, and
the trapper took the finest, a mouse-colored kitten beaver's
skin, and presented it to me. I hired his beautiful Arab mare,
whose springy step and long easy stride was a relief after
Birdie's short sturdy gait. We had a very pleasant ride, and I
seldom had to walk. We took neither of the trails, but cut right
through the forest to a place where, through an opening in the
Foot Hills, the Plains stretched to the horizon covered with
snow, the surface of which, having melted and frozen, reflected
as water would the pure blue of the sky, presenting a complete
optical illusion. It required my knowledge of fact to assure me
that I was not looking at the ocean. "Jim" shortened the way by
repeating a great deal of poetry, and by earnest, reasonable
conversation, so that I was quite surprised when it grew dark.
He told me that he never lay down to sleep without prayer - prayer
chiefly that God would give him a happy death. He had previously
promised that he would not hurry or scold, but "fyking" had not
been included in the arrangement, and when in the early darkness
we reached the steep hill, at whose foot the rapid deep St. Vrain
flows, he "fyked" unreasonably about me, the mare, and the
crossing generally, and seemed to think I could not get through,
for the ice had been cut with an axe, and we could not see
whether "glaze" had formed since or not.
I was to have slept at the house of a woman farther down the
canyon, who never ceases talking, but Miller, the young man whose
attractive house and admirable habits I have mentioned before,
came out and said his house was "now fixed for ladies," so we
stayed there, and I was "made as comfortable" as could be.
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