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What I Saw in California by Edwin Bryant
page 85 of 243 (34%)
equal to the age of its wearer. It had probably never been off his body
since he first put it on. "I am," said he, "an old man--eighty-three
years--it is a long time to live;--eighty-three years last--. I have
seen all the Injun varmints of the Rocky Mountains,--have fout
them--lived with them. I have many children--I don't know how many,
they are scattered; but my wife was a Crow. The Crows are a brave
nation,--the bravest of all the Injuns; they fight like the white man;
they don't kill you in the dark like the Black-foot varmint, and then
take your scalp and run, the cowardly reptiles. Eighty-three years
last----; and yet old Greenwood could handle the rifle as well as the
best on 'em, but for this infernal humour in my eyes, caught three
years ago in bringing the emigrators over the _de_-sart." (A circle of
scarlet surrounded his weeping eyeballs.) "I can't see jist now as well
as I did fifty years ago, but I can always bring the game or the
slinking and skulking Injun. I have jist come over the mountains from
Sweetwater with the emigrators as pilot, living upon bacon, bread,
milk, and sich like mushy stuff. It don't agree with me; it never will
agree with a man of my age, eighty-three last ----; that is a long time
to live. I thought I would take a small hunt to get a little exercise
for my old bones, and some good fresh meat. The grisly bear, fat deer,
and poultry and fish--them are such things as a man should eat. I came
up here, where I knew there was plenty. I was here twenty years ago,
before any white man see this lake and the rich land about it. It's
filled with big fish. That's beer-springs here, better than them in the
Rocky Mountains; thar's a mountain of solid brimstone, and thar's mines
of gold and silver, all of which I know'd many years ago, and I can
show them to you if you will go with me in the morning. These
black-skinned Spaniards have rebelled again. Wall, they can make a
fuss, d--m 'em, and have revolutions every year, but they can't fight.
It's no use to go after 'em, unless when you ketch 'em you kill 'em.
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