expression. He had a pleasant black eye, a high forehead, and, while he
kept his hat on, the look of a man in the jocund prime of his days; but
the moment his head was uncovered, a bald crown gained him credit for a
few more years than he was really entitled to.

Being extremely curious, at the time, about every thing connected with
the Far West, I addressed numerous questions to him. They drew from him
a number of extremely striking details, which were given with mingled
modesty and frankness; and in a gentleness of manner, and a soft tone of
voice, contrasting singularly with the wild and often startling nature
of his themes. It was difficult to conceive the mild, quiet-looking
personage before you, the actual hero of the stirring scenes related.

In the course of three or four months, happening to be at the city of
Washington, I again came upon the captain, who was attending the slow
adjustment of his affairs with the War Department. I found him quartered
with a worthy brother in arms, a major in the army. Here he was writing
at a table, covered with maps and papers, in the centre of a large
barrack room, fancifully decorated with Indian arms, and trophies, and
war dresses, and the skins of various wild animals, and hung round with
pictures of Indian games and ceremonies, and scenes of war and hunting.
In a word, the captain was beguiling the tediousness of attendance at
court, by an attempt at authorship; and was rewriting and extending his
travelling notes, and making maps of the regions he had explored. As he
sat at the table, in this curious apartment, with his high bald head of
somewhat foreign cast, he reminded me of some of those antique pictures
of authors that I have seen in old Spanish volumes.

The result of his labors was a mass of manuscript, which he subsequently
put at my disposal, to fit it for publication and bring it before