Mudeater by John D. Pihach

Author:John D. Pihach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Regina Press
Published: 2017-03-16T20:35:45+00:00

Part Two

ROBERT ARMSTRONG’S MEMOIR

Preface to Armstrong’s Memoir

Armstrong’s manuscript, written in 1920, consists of seventy-three handwritten pages, with pages three and six missing. It is reproduced here entirely with only some slight editing for clarity. The memoir opens with “The writer of this story had the facts presented to him by the lips of the old hunter and scout whose life the story depicts from boyhood until the ending of the Canadian North-West Rebellion of 1885.” The writer who put Armstrong’s words to paper most likely was the old hunter’s son-in-law, Richard (Harry) Humphrey, the husband of Armstrong’s daughter, Cora, with whom Armstrong lived for many years from 1914 until his death in 1940. The language of this chronicle confers a credible picture of Armstrong recounting his life story, but often the scribe’s contribution is sensed when a contrived manner occasionally intrudes on Armstrong’s chatty style. After Cora’s death, the manuscript was passed to her sister Myrtle, who in turn gave it to her daughter, Ella Melendrez. Two journalists viewed the manuscript in the 1920s, and both published articles summarizing Armstrong’s life with copious quotations from it but without any investigation into his stories.1

Armstrong was one of hundreds of hunters who participated in the slaughter of buffalo on the U.S. plains. Except for those few who became legends, they did not leave a paper trail, thus making it difficult, and in most cases impossible, to verify many of the events and details in Armstrong’s narrative. The experiences he relates range from the incidental to those linking him to historical events. When he talks, for example, about his pets, he contributes to the picture of a buffalo hunter’s daily life, and there is little reason to doubt what he says. In his portrayal of some other events, Armstrong does not explicitly declare that he was a participant in those events, though the implication might be there. For instance, his description of the 1868 killing of William Comstock, chief scout at Fort Wallace, gives the impression of being a first-hand account even though Armstrong does not make that claim—he was not there until some later time. This does not invalidate his story as he is merely passing on what he had learned about the incident after coming to Fort Wallace. And then there are some stories that are doubtful, such as his participation in the fight at Adobe Walls and in Nolan’s Lost Expedition.

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