as an Indian fighter, and trapper, must be conceded
to Richens Lacy Wooton, known first as "Dick," in his younger days on
the plains, then, when age had overtaken him, as "Uncle Dick."

Born in Virginia, his father, when he was but seven years of age,
removed with his family to Kentucky, where he cultivated a tobacco
plantation. Like his predecessor and lifelong friend Carson, young
Wooton tired of the monotony of farming, and in the summer of 1836 made
a trip to the busy frontier town of Independence, Missouri, where he
found a caravan belonging to Colonel St. Vrain and the Bents, already
loaded, and ready to pull out for the fort built by the latter, and
named for them.

Wooton had a fair business education, and was superior in this respect
to his companions in the caravan to which he had attached himself. It
was by those rough, but kind-hearted, men that he was called "Dick," as
they could not readily master the more complicated name of "Richens."

When he started from Independence on his initial trip across the plains,
he was only nineteen, but, like all Kentuckians, perfectly familiar with
a rifle, and could shoot out a squirrel's eye with the certainty which
long practice and hardened nerves assures.

The caravan, in which he was employed as a teamster, was composed of
only seven wagons; but a larger one, in which were more than fifty, had
preceded it, and as that was heavily laden, and the smaller one only
lightly, it was intended to overtake the former before the dangerous
portions of the Trail were reached, which it did in a few days and was
assigned a place in the long line.

Every man had to take his turn in standing guard, and the first night
that it fell to young Wooton was at Little Cow Creek, in the Upper
Arkansas valley. Nothing had occurred thus far during the trip to
imperil the safety of the caravan, nor was any attack by the savages
looked for.

Wooton's post comprehended the whole length of one side of the corral,
and his instructions were to shoot anything he saw moving outside of
the line of mules farthest from the wagons. The young sentry was
very vigilant. He did not feel at all sleepy, but eagerly watched for
something that might possibly come within the prescribed distance,
though not really expecting such a contingency.

About two o'clock he heard a slight noise, and saw something moving
about, sixty or seventy yards from where he was lying on the ground, to
which he had dropped the