Book description
JIM BRIDGER- MOUNTAIN MAN: A BIOGRAPHY by STANLEY VESTAL. Contents
include: PREFACE ix PART 1 TRAPPER I ENTERPRISING YOUNG MAN 1 II. SET
POLES FOR THE MOUNTAINS 8 HI. HIVERNAN 21 IV. THE MISSOURI LEGION 28 V.
HUGH GLASS AND THE GRIZZLY 40 PART 3 BOOSHWAY VI. BLANKET CHIEF 57 VIL
THE BATTLE OF PIERRE S HOLE 69 VHI. SHOT IN THE BACK 86 IX. DEVIL TAKE
THE HINDMOST 95 X. ARROW BUTCHERED OUT 105 XL OLD GABE TO THE RESCUE 112
XII. INJUN SCRAPES 119 XIII. THE LAST RENDEZVOUS 132 vii mil CONTENTS
PART 3 TRADER XTV. FORT BRIDGER 142 XV. MILK RIVER . 154 XVI. THE
OVERLAND TRAIL 162 XVH. THE TREATY AT LARAMIE 168 XVm. THE SAINTS RAID
FORT BRIDGER 182 PART 4, GUIDE XIX. SIR GEORGE GORE 192 XX. THE MARCH
SOUTH 199 XXI. TALL TALES 206 PART 5 CHIEF OF SCOUTS XXII. THE POWDER
RIVER EXPEDITION 220 XXHI. RED CLOUD S DEFIANCE 241 XXIV. THE CHEYENNES
WARNING 249 XXV. BLOODY JUNKET 258 XXVI. FORT PHIL KEARNEY 268 XXVEL
AMBUSH 278 XXVttL MASSACRE 284 XXIX. THE END OF THE TRAIL 295 APPENDIX
301 INDEX PREFACE EVER since tlie days when, as a boy, I raced Indian
ponies and swam in a Western river with the Cheyenne lads, I have felt
the lack of a satisfying portrait of Jim Bridger. The intervening years
permitted much research, but somehow the books about Bridger never
seemed to do him justice. In his own time he was a legend, and since his
death historians have been content for the most part merely to pile up
facts around these retold incidents. There has been no adequate biog
raphy to bring the man to life. quot Few men have beenjso
misrepresented. On the one hand, he was represented in fiction and on
the screen as a drunken, loutish polygamist and liar, in a carica ture
so monstrous that his outraged relatives brought suit to recover
damages. The court ruled that no one could confuse this caricature with
the real Jim Bridger, and denied the suit. On the other hand, Jim
Bridger s real achievements have been ignored or neglected by writers,
who have tried to rep resent him as an Injun fighter with aE the dash
and daring of Kit Carson, as a wag with all the wit and love of fun of
Joe Meek, or as a crusty, ignorant hillbilly, unable to hold his own in
the society of civilized men...
