Where the Rivers Run North by Sam Morton

Author:Sam Morton [Morton, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-938416-71-2
Publisher: River Grove Books
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Noll’s and Cody’s affection for good horseflesh and whiskey made the two fast friends. Buffalo Bill’s visit to Wallop’s ranch sent all Noll’s cowboys running for their guns. Everyone wanted to display his shooting skills against the great Western showman. At Wallop’s ranch in Bighorn, several marksmanship contests were staged. Buffalo Bill was beaten with a pistol by one of Wallop’s cowboys and by Noll himself with a rifle.

On another visit to the Inn, Noll met Frank Grouard.

I had an interesting half-hour today chatting or rather listening with a stray question to Buffalo Bill and Frank Grouard, another old Army scout. As great a contrast lay the entire lives of both as between the appearance of both men. Buffalo Bill is an exceedingly good-looking man with splendid carriage and physique, with a kind of weak face but over it all a self-satisfied advertised air. He was well dressed, a little too well dressed, for the size of his pins and rings were not in accordance with the canvas of good taste, and beside him sat Frank Grouard, rough and dirty, still a scout and at his old trade, just in off an apparently impossible trip over the mountains with a single saddle horse and packhorse, heavyset and evidently possessed of tremendous physical strength, with the utmost courage and coolness apparent in his face marred by the stamp of the most repulsive cruelty. A man to whom tenacity of purpose was matched by his tenacity of counsel. Buffalo Bill had this much in common with Grouard, that he had been a scout, while he owed his future to his address, physique, and constant self-assertion. Grouard’s life had been a kaleidoscope of dark romance. Originally a Kanaka, he lost his uncle in an attack on an immigrant train returning from California over the plains and was spared by the Indians on account of his color. He was “raised” by Sitting Bull. As he grew up, he became a minor chief among the Sioux until, seeing the natural outcome of the war between the races, he turned traitor to his adopted people and, joining the whites, he became their most hostile foe. But ever since he joined his new friends, has anyone questioned his loyalty courage or honesty? So they sat there, he and Cody, the latter doing nearly all the talking, the former watching through half-closed eyes with a contemptuous sneer just showing on his evil face. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a half-hour so much for a long time as I did these two men. Good night, my darling. God bless you. Yours ever, OHW, 1894

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.