Jim Bridger - Mountain Man

JIM BRIDGER- MOUNTAIN MAN: A BIOGRAPHY by STANLEY VESTAL. Contents include: PREFACE ix PART 1 TRAPPER I ENTERPRISING YOUNG MAN 1 II. SET POLES FOR THE MOUNTAINS 8 HI. HIVERNAN 21 IV. THE MISSOURI LEGION 28 V. HUGH GLASS AND THE GRIZZLY 40 PART 3 BOOSHWAY VI. BLANKET CHIEF 57 VIL THE BATTLE OF PIERRE S HOLE 69 VHI. SHOT IN THE BACK 86 IX. DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST 95 X. ARROW BUTCHERED OUT 105 XL OLD GABE TO THE RESCUE 112 XII. INJUN SCRAPES 119 XIII. THE LAST RENDEZVOUS 132 vii mil CONTENTS PART 3 TRADER XTV. FORT BRIDGER 142 XV. MILK RIVER . 154 XVI. THE OVERLAND TRAIL 162 XVH. THE TREATY AT LARAMIE 168 XVm. THE SAINTS RAID FORT BRIDGER 182 PART 4, GUIDE XIX. SIR GEORGE GORE 192 XX. THE MARCH SOUTH 199 XXI. TALL TALES 206 PART 5 CHIEF OF SCOUTS XXII. THE POWDER RIVER EXPEDITION 220 XXHI. RED CLOUD S DEFIANCE 241 XXIV. THE CHEYENNES WARNING 249 XXV. BLOODY JUNKET 258 XXVI. FORT PHIL KEARNEY 268 XXVEL AMBUSH 278 XXVttL MASSACRE 284 XXIX. THE END OF THE TRAIL 295 APPENDIX 301 INDEX PREFACE EVER since tlie days when, as a boy, I raced Indian ponies and swam in a Western river with the Cheyenne lads, I have felt the lack of a satisfying portrait of Jim Bridger. The intervening years permitted much research, but somehow the books about Bridger never seemed to do him justice. In his own time he was a legend, and since his death historians have been content for the most part merely to pile up facts around these retold incidents. There has been no adequate biog raphy to bring the man to life. quot Few men have beenjso misrepresented. On the one hand, he was represented in fiction and on the screen as a drunken, loutish polygamist and liar, in a carica ture so monstrous that his outraged relatives brought suit to recover damages. The court ruled that no one could confuse this caricature with the real Jim Bridger, and denied the suit. On the other hand, Jim Bridger s real achievements have been ignored or neglected by writers, who have tried to rep resent him as an Injun fighter with aE the dash and daring of Kit Carson, as a wag with all the wit and love of fun of Joe Meek, or as a crusty, ignorant hillbilly, unable to hold his own in the society of civilized men...