My friend, Tazewell Woody, was among the chief actors in one of the most
noteworthy adventures of this kind. He was a very quiet man, and it
was exceedingly difficult to get him to talk over any of his past
experiences; but one day, when he was in high good-humor with me for
having made three consecutive straight shots at elk, he became quite
communicative, and I was able to get him to tell me one story which
I had long wished to hear from his lips, having already heard of it
through one of the other survivors of the incident. When he found that I
already knew a good deal old Woody told me the rest.
It was in the spring of 1875, and Woody and two friends were trapping on
the Yellowstone. The Sioux were very bad at the time and had killed
many prospectors, hunters, cowboys, and settlers; the whites retaliated
whenever they got a chance, but, as always in Indian warfare, the
sly, lurking, bloodthirsty savages inflicted much more loss than they
suffered.
The three men, having a dozen horses with them, were camped by the
river-side in a triangular patch of brush, shaped a good deal like a
common flat-iron.
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