On Charlie Jones' return, he said: "It seems that Mountain Phil has been faring better than any of us, for he has been able to kill his meat at camp, thereby saving him the trouble of having to get out and hunt for it."
Johnnie and I did not understand what he meant by this. So, after hesitating a moment, Jones said: "Boys, if I should tell you what I know about Mountain Phil, you would not believe it, but as sure as you live he has killed his squaw and eaten most of her, and he has left his camp."
We insisted that he must be mistaken, but he declared that he was not, saying he had seen the bones in the cabin, and further investigation had developed the fact that he had beyond any doubt killed and eaten his Indian wife.
From that time on, Mountain Phil went by the name of the American Cannibal until his death, which was—if my memory serves me right—in 1863 or '64, at Virginia City, Mont.
After the snow had settled so that a person could travel on top of it, I took my gun and stole out one day to see if I could not kill a mountain sheep. As I clambered up the mountain I looked about one hundred yards or so ahead of me on a cliff of rock, and saw a panther, which I supposed was looking out for the same kind of game that I was. I fired and killed her the first shot and started to skin her, when I heard the kittens, or young panthers, crying up in the rocks near where I had shot the old one. My first thought then was what a nice pet I would have if I could only get hold of those young panthers. I was afraid to crawl into the cave for fear the other old panther might come in on me, so I cut a forked stick and twisted in their fur and in that way managed to pull them out, all the time keeping a sharp lookout for the other old one. I took the two young panthers to the cabin and made pets of them. They grew to be very watchful; nothing could move without their knowing it. The female grew to be very tame, and a more affectionate creature I never saw. But it was different with the male. When he was six months old he got to be very cross, and I had to keep him tied up. One day I went out to feed them and he drew back and slapped me, and I shot him on the spot with my pistol. The female I kept until she was considerably over a year old, when I sold her for one hundred dollars to an Englishman named Mace, and had I only known it, that panther was worth five hundred dollars. I had taught her many tricks.
She could count ten, by putting her paw on the ground ten times, and would do various other tricks, but when asked by any other person than her master to perform, she would shake her head and would not allow any one else to touch her. I always tied her up when going out for a hunt, and when I would return she would cry and scream so shrill that it would almost raise the hat on a man's head until I would untie her. She never was contented until she could get to lick my face, and I never saw a dog more watchful than she.
It was in the month of April that Uncle Kit came in with a pack- train for the furs, the snowfall having been so heavy that he could not get in earlier. Our catch had been light, as we had more snow that winter than has ever been known before or since in the history of that country. Uncle Kit was, however, very well satisfied with our work, with the exception of Mountain Phil, whom he had furnished for the winter, and who had not caught a beaver. We soon had our traps and furs together, loaded up and were on our way to New Mexico.
The third day about noon we reached the Cache-la-Poudre, where we again ran on to the American Cannibal. We stopped here to let our horses feed and to partake of some refreshments ourselves. Uncle Kit, after giving Mountain Phil a lecture for his past conduct, said:
"Phil, if ever you and I are out together in the mountains and run short of provisions, I will shoot you down as I would a wolf, before you get hungry."
Phil asked him why he would do so, and Carson replied: "Because I wouldn't take the chances of being killed and eaten up by a cannibal like you."
It might be well to give a brief description of this cannibal. He was a large, raw-boned man, who would weigh about two hundred and fifty pounds, though he was not very fleshy. He always wore his hair long and never combed it, also wore his beard long and never sheared or combed that. His hair grew down on his forehead almost to his eyes. In fact he looked more like an animal than a human being.
Three days' travel brought us to South Platte, where we crossed the river and made camp on a little stream called Sand Creek. It was our custom to stake our saddle horses out at night as near camp as good grass could be found. The following morning Johnnie West and myself had been out after the pack animals, and on our return when within about a quarter of a mile from camp, we heard a rumbling noise that sounded like a band of buffalo in a stampede. We looked off to our right and saw a large herd of horses, driven by seven Ute Indians, who were pushing them at the greatest possible speed. We urged our horses in the direction of camp as fast as possible. As soon as we were in sight of camp, we gave the alarm and every man sprang to his gun, mounted his horse and was ready to receive them. The Indians did not see us until they had run the herd of horses almost into our camp. Our saddle horses being fresh, we succeeded in killing the seven Indians before they got far away, and captured the herd of horses, which proved to be a herd they had stolen from the Arapahoe Indians the night before, and in less than an hour, Gray Eagle, the Arapahoe chief, came along in pursuit, accompanied by fifty of his select warriors. When Uncle Kit showed him the dead Utes, he walked up to one of them, gave him a kick and said: "Lo-mis-mo-cay-o-te," which means, "All the same as cayote."
Gray Eagle gave us each a horse, thanked us very kindly and returned to his village with his animals.
We proceeded on our journey to Santa Fe, which took us twelve days. Here we met our old friend, Joe Favor, who we had sold our furs to the year before, and who bought them again this season.
Furs being still higher this year, notwithstanding our small catch, Uncle Kit did fairly well out of his winter's trapping.
After settling up with Uncle Kit, Mr. Favor called me into the store and presented me with a single-shot, silver-mounted pistol, also a knife that weighed two and one-fourth pounds, that had been manufactured in St. Louis. We stopped at Santa Fe and rested two days, after which time Uncle Kit, Johnnie West, myself and my pet panther returned home to Taos, which was a distance of ninety miles from Santa Fe.
CHAPTER VI.
TWO BOYS RIDE TO THE CITY OF MEXICO. ELEVEN HUNDRED MILES OF TRIAL, DANGER AND DUTY—A GIFT HORSE.—THE WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS.
It was now the spring of 1850. I was eighteen years old and beginning to think myself a man. Uncle Kit asked me to go to the City of Mexico, saying that he owed a man there two hundred and fifty dollars, and wished to pay him. He also told me that he would have Juan, the Mexican boy, accompany me on the journey, but cautioned me not to let any one know that I had money. "For," said he, "them Mexican guerrillas would kill you if they knew you had money about you."
The reader can fancy two boys at the age of eighteen, starting out on a trip of eleven hundred miles, over a wild country, with no settlement except hostile Indians and Mexicans, who are worse than Indians if they know a person has money about him. At that time there were no roads across the country in that direction; nothing but a trail—a part of the way not even that—and the whole country full of Mexican guerrillas—or, as we would term them, Mexican robbers—who made it a business to murder people whom they suspected of having money, and who would even massacre whole trains of emigrants, take what money they might have, their provisions and clothing, burn their wagons and drive their stock away. The fact is that many of the depredations committed in those days, for which the Indians were blamed, were done by those fiendish Mexicans.