as as bald as a
billiard ball, and he wore a wig. One day while we were all at Bent's
Fort, while there were a great number of Indians about, Belzy concluded
to have a bit of fun. He walked around, eying the Indians fiercely
for some time, and finally, dashing in among them, he gave a series of
war-whoops which discounted a Comanche yell, and pulling off his wig,
threw it down at the feet of the astonished and terror-stricken red men.

"The savages thought the fellow had jerked off his own scalp, and not
one of them wanted to stay and see what would happen next. They left the
fort, running like so many scared jack-rabbits, and after that none of
them could be induced to approach anywhere near Dodd."

They called him "The-white-man-who-scalps-himself," and Uncle Dick said
that he believed he could have travelled across the plains alone with
perfect safety.

Jim Baker was another noted mountaineer and hunter of the same era as
Carson, Bridger, Wooton, Hobbs, and many others. Next to Kit Carson,
Baker was General Fremont's most valued scout.

He was born in Illinois, and lived at home until he was eighteen years
of age, when he enlisted in the service of the American Fur Company,
went immediately to the Rocky Mountains, and remained there until his
death. He married a wife according to the Indian custom, from the Snake
tribe, living with her relatives many years and cultivating many of
their habits, ideas, and superstitions. He firmly believed in the
efficacy of the charms and incantations of the medicine men in curing
diseases, divining where their enemy was to be found, forecasting
the result of war expeditions, and other such ridiculous matters.
Unfortunately, too, Baker would sometimes take a little more whiskey
than he could conveniently carry, and often made a fool of himself, but
he was a generous, noble-hearted fellow, who would risk his life for a
friend at any time, or divide his last morsel of food.

Like mountaineers generally, Baker was liberal to a fault, and eminently
improvident. He made a fortune by his work, but at the annual rendezvous
of the traders, at Bent's Fort or the old Pueblo, would throw away the
earnings of months in a few days' jollification.

He told General Marcy, who was a warm friend of his, that after one
season in which he had been unusually successful in accumulating a large
amount of valuable furs, from the sale of which he had realized the
handsome sum of nine thousand dollars,