band. I have never seen since
that time so many Elk with so large horns as I saw on that trip, which
convinced me that there had been no white hunters through that part of
the country before.

In traveling along there were times we were not out of sight of deer for
hours; consequently we never killed our game for supper until we went
into camp, and as a rule, the boys always picked me to get the meat
while they took care of the horses. I remember one evening I was just
getting ready to start out on my hunt. I asked the boys what kind of
meat they wanted for supper. Jonnie West said, "Give us something new."
Well, I answered, "How will a cub bear do?" They all answered, "That is
just what we want." That moment I turned my eyes to the south, and on
a ridge not more than three hundred yards from camp, I saw three bears
eating sarvis berries. I was not long in getting into gun shot of them.
There was the old mother bear and two cubs. I had to wait several
minutes before I could get a good sight on the one I wanted, as they
were in the brush and I wanted a sure shot. I fired and broke his neck;
he had hardly done kicking before Jonnie West and some of the Indians
were there. We made quick work getting the meat to camp and around the
fire cooking, and it was as fine a piece of meat as I ever ate.

The next morning we bid the Indians good bye, but before they left us
one of them stooped down and with a finger marked out the route we
should take, thinking we did not know the country we must pass over, and
strange to say, the route this wild Indian marked out in the sand was
accurate in every particular. He made dots for the places where we
should camp and a little mark for a stream of water, then little piles
of sand for mountains, some large and some small, according to the size
of the mountain we were to cross. After he had finished his work, I
examined the diagram and I found he had marked out every place where we
should camp.

From there to the head of the Arkansas river, I called Jonnie West and
asked him to look at it. He examined it at every point and said, "This
beats any thing I ever saw or heard tell of; with this to guide us, we
could not get lost if we tried to."

We were now ready to start. Jonnie said to me, "Well, I feel we owe this
Indian something. How many butcher knives have you?"

I said, "I have two." "Alright, I will give him this finger ring and you
give him one of your knives."

We did so, and I