Like Corporal
Trim In His Campaigns, He Had "Satisfied The Sentiment," And That
Was All.
In fact, he was too much of the frank, freehearted
soldier, and had inherited too much of his father's temperament,
to make a scheming trapper, or a thrifty bargainer.
There was something in the whole appearance of the captain that
prepossessed me in his favor. He was of the middle size, well
made and well set; and a military frock of foreign cut, that had
seen service, gave him a look of compactness. His countenance was
frank, open, and engaging; well browned by the sun, and had
something of a French expression. He had a pleasant black eye, a
high forehead, and, while he kept his hat on, the look of a man
in the jocund prime of his days; but the moment his head was
uncovered, a bald crown gained him credit for a few more years
than he was really entitled to.
Being extremely curious, at the time, about every thing connected
with the Far West, I addressed numerous questions to him. They
drew from him a number of extremely striking details, which were
given with mingled modesty and frankness; and in a gentleness of
manner, and a soft tone of voice, contrasting singularly with the
wild and often startling nature of his themes. It was difficult
to conceive the mild, quiet-looking personage before you, the
actual hero of the stirring scenes related.
In the course of three or four months, happening to be at the
city of Washington, I again came upon the captain, who was
attending the slow adjustment of his affairs with the War
Department. I found him quartered with a worthy brother in arms,
a major in the army. Here he was writing at a table, covered with
maps and papers, in the centre of a large barrack room,
fancifully decorated with Indian arms, and trophies, and war
dresses, and the skins of various wild animals, and hung round
with pictures of Indian games and ceremonies, and scenes of war
and hunting. In a word, the captain was beguiling the tediousness
of attendance at court, by an attempt at authorship; and was
rewriting and extending his travelling notes, and making maps of
the regions he had explored. As he sat at the table, in this
curious apartment, with his high bald head of somewhat foreign
cast, he reminded me of some of those antique pictures of authors
that I have seen in old Spanish volumes.
The result of his labors was a mass of manuscript, which he
subsequently put at my disposal, to fit it for publication and
bring it before the world. I found it full of interesting details
of life among the mountains, and of the singular castes and
races, both white men and red men, among whom he had sojourned.
It bore, too, throughout, the impress of his character, his
bonhommie, his kindliness of spirit, and his susceptibility to
the grand and beautiful.
That manuscript has formed the staple of the following work.
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