MAESTROS OF THE MOUNTAINS

 

by: Kerry Ross Boren

 

Virtually everything I ever learned about history, philosophy, science, religion, politics and human nature in general, I learned by sitting around a campfire in the Uintah Mountains of northeastern Utah, listening to men who had opinions on everything from Einstein's Theory of Relativity to whether or not the Pope pees standing up. We are not talking about rocket scientists or PhD's here. Hell nol We're talking about ranchers, dirt farmers, cowboys, sheepherders, and river rats-hard-baked, odd freaks of humanity, reprobates and other such luminaries who had obtained their degrees from the School of Hard Knocks. By their own admission they were much smarter than those pre-fessors of higher learning who had diplomas where their brains ought to be, and who never knew whether they were scratching their watch or winding their ass. From these pundits of pugnacity, these grizzled old maestros of the mountains, I learned among other things that opinions are more important than facts and in much greater supply. My father, who was kicked out of the sixth grade for dunking his teacher in the cold water of Henry's Fork of the Green River, was one of these campfire sages. Normally a man of few words, the flickering flame of an aromatic pinion-log campfire and good company seemed to trigger in him a fountain of memories. It inspired him to dispense wisdom in the form of country aphorisms and misty-eyed reminiscences like bubbling water from an artesian well. I acquired a higher form of education at this campfire campus that ever I did in public school, and with much less encouragement. At this forum, and at a very early age, I gleaned my first interest in history, and began recording the biographies and reminiscences of some of these fascinating old characters who were to have such a profound influence on my life. Their stories are replete with pathos, humor, and if you look deep enough, there is a wisdom there that belies its homely origins. We will share a few of their stories in these pages. HOW DAD KILLED THE SHEEPHERDER My father had been planning to run away from home for some time. He hated his step- mother, he hated school, his father was too strict, and he was strong-willed and determined to make his own way in life. In 1906, at the age of thirteen, fate conspired to give him a chance. During the previous year his father had uprooted the family from their home on the Uintah- Ouray Indian Reservation, where he had been happy, to trek across the mountain and settle at Linwood, on Henry's Fork, where he knew no one. He was sent to school in the Stateline Schoolhouse, a little red school where the state lines of Utah and Wyoming ran along the ridge-pole, where he felt abused by the hard-nosed schoolmaster who delighted in caning his unruly students with a birch sapling. He made a friend at school. Wilford "Wilf" Tolten, son of the local Mormon bishop, was near his own age and disposition. Caught talking in class, the schoolmaster caned them both soundly. They vowed revenge. They hid themselves in the willow brakes along Henry's Fork after school, waylaid the teacher, and ducked him in the river. Neither of them dared to return home, so they ran away to Wyoming, lied about their ages, and found jobs herding sheep in the Wind River country. They both felt pretty big for their breeches. They had stood up for themselves, exerted their independence and now had men's jobs with a sheep rancher at twenty-and-found. Nobody was ever going to tell them what to do again, they vaunted. "Wash them god-damned dishes, and when you get that done, chop some firewood for the stovel Move yer lazy assesl They's work to be donel" The sheepherder, a grizzled, fuzzy-faced old hard case with leathery hide and the disposition of a rattlesnake with hemorrhoids, was far meaner to them than the weasely little schoolmaster had been. He barked orders continuously and emphasized his contempt for slowness by a cuff on the ear. He resented having to put up with them at all, and said so in no uncertain terms. "I'm the boss of this here camp," he bellowed, "and don't you damned well forget it. When I say jump, you better ask how high, an' if'n I say piss, you better ask how farl" They hated him instantly. But this wasn't the schoolmaster; this old reprobate was tough, and they were rightly afraid of him. "We gotta do somethin' about this," my father complained. "Yeah," agreed Wilf, "but VJLU?" "I'll think of somethin'." my father replied. They lived together in a sheepwagon on a windy ridge. That is to say, the old sheepherder lived in the wagon; he made Ed and Wilf sleep outside, and even if it rained they could only crawl under the wagon for protection, such as it was. He cooked the meals and shoved it over the dutch door on tin plates at the same time when he fed the dogs. He kept a loaded double-barreled 12- gauge shotgun leaning just inside the door. "Fer coyotes and other pesky varmints." "We gotta do somethin' about this," my father repeated, following weeks of abuse. "Yeah," echoed Wilf, "but Abal?" "I've got an idea, but you gotta back me up all the way." "Don't I always?" "He always takes a nap about two o'clock in the afternoon," my father said, leaning in close so he couldn't be overheard. "Now here's what we do..."

On the fateful day of showdown the two boys stealthily approached the door of the sheepwagon. My father stepped carefully up on the wagon tongue so as not to rock the wagon and peered inside. "He's asleep," he whispered over his shoulder to Wilf. "Let's gol" "Get the shotgun," Wilf croaked, half scared to death. "Don't forget the shotgun." They carefully opened the bottom half of the Dutch door-the top was open-and climbed inside. My father grabbed up the shotgun and approached the elevated bed at the back of the sheep camp; Wilf followed close behind, dragging a length of rope. My father poked the shotgun under the snoring nose of the old sheepherder and cocked both of the hammers back. The old man snorted a couple of times and woke up. His eyes crossed as he looked down the muzzle of the gun and saw my father's flushed face, grimacing malevolently. "What the hell..?" he started, trying to sit up. "Shut upl" my father barked. "I'm the boss of this camp now. When I tell you to jump, you better ask how high, an' when I say to piss, you better ask how farl" They forced him off the bed in his long-johns and tied him securely to a chair. He lost his bravado and began to tremble. "What're you boys plannin' to do to me?" "Why, we're gonna kill you, of course," my father retorted. Wilf tied a blindfold over the old sheepherder's eyes. "Now, you boys ain't serious ... are you? I mean, I might'a been a little too harsh with you boys, but I ain't done nothin' so bad you'd go an' do somethin' like that ... would you?" "You better start sayin' yore prayers, old man," piped in WIlf, at last getting into the sport of it. "Yeah," my father added, "do you have any idea what a double-o buckshot blast will do to a man's face? BLAMI"-the old man jumped in his chair-"Mincemeati" "Now come on, boys," the old man begged, beads of sweat welling up in the wrinkles of his brow, "I promise you if you let me go, I won't say nothin' to nobody 'bout what you boys done, an' I promise I won't say one harsh word to you boys. An' you don't even have to do the chores around camp. Now, whatta you say, huh?" "No deal, old man," my father said. "You know too much, now. You gotta die." "Yeah," echoed Wilf, "die." A wash basin of water had been heating on the nearby stove where the old man had planned to wash up after his nap. A washcloth steamed in the boiling water. Wilf grabbed up a splinter of woods from the box next to the stove and carefully lifted the steaming washcloth from the basin. My father leaned close to the old man's ear and said, sotto voce, "Get ready to meet your maker, you old tyrant, for on the count of three I'm gonna blow yore brains out!" ~

"One..." the old sheepherder stiffened. "Two..." he started to sob. My father clicked the hammers on the shotgun, at which the old man sucked in his breath, then pointed the barrel out of the door of the sheepwagon. "Three!" BOOM!! My father fired both barrels out the door and just as they went off, Wilf hit the old sheepherder in the face with the hot wet dishcloth. The old man pissed his pants and passed out. Two days later the boys were back at Linwood, penniless-they had not dared pick up their pay-and unusually docile. They never bothered to explain where they had been or why they had returned home so hastily. TONTO Some years ago I went into a bank in Vernal, Utah, which is situated quite near the Ute Indian Reservation, and applied for a personal loan. I sat down at the loan manager's desk and filled out an application. The loan manager was a typical westerner, decked out in bolo tie and white Stetson hat. I handed him the completed application and after perusing it, he passed it to a Native American employee at an adjoining desk. "Hey, Tonto," he said to the Indian, "process this for me, will you?" The Ute hurried off to comply. "Did I hear you just call that man 'Tonto'?" I asked. "Why, yes I did. Just a little nickname I have for him." "Isn't that just a bit condescending?" I queried. He leaned back in his chair, grinned, and pushed his Stetson back on his forehead. "Not at all. Not at all. You see, I am the Loan Arranger, and he's my faithful sidekick. That's why I call him Tonto." OLD MAN PUFFER His name was James Monroe Puffer, but to all and sundry who knew him he was simply Old Man Puffer. My grandfather, Willard Schofield, had known him in Beaver, in Southern Utah, even before they came together to Daggett County in Northeastern Utah in 1895. They were related by marriage through the Twitchell family. Old Man Puffer had been a pioneer settler at Beaver. He had befriended an old Indian named Beaver Adz, for whom the town and county of Beaver was named. Old Beaver was not a "local" Indian. He had come into the region before the arrival of the Mormons with a company of Canadian fur trappers, liked what he saw, and decided to remain. When he met Puffer, they became inseparable friends and local legends. ~

Old Beaver was a noted tracker. He was often employed during the Indian wars to track renegade Utes and rustled livestock. Old Man Puffer frequently accompanied him and learned the secrets of tracking from the master. My grandfather often recounted the story of Puffer's first tracking experience with Beaver Adz. Sometime during the night, someone had driven off livestock from the town. Old Beaver was called for to track down the culprits, and he took with him his proteg6, Puffer. It was a cold and wintry day. After only a few miles on the trail Beaver suddenly stopped, examined the tracks, and reported there were three men, not Indians but Whites. "How can you tell that?" Puffer asked. "Three horses have iron shoes," Beaver replied. "White men." A few miles farther on Beaver stopped again and examined signs in the snow. "One man old. Two men are young." he said. Puffer was amazed. "How could you possibly tell that?" Beaver pointed to three yellow stains in a snowbank. Beaver kneeled down and pointed to the tracks and the stains. "One man he pee close to shoes: him old. Other two pee far out: them young." When the three men were finally captured, it was found they were an elderly father and his two young sons. Old Man Puffer settled in the little town of Manila (then known appropriately as Sandtown) in 1896. He was a familiar sight on the streets for many years. He dressed in a curious combination of buckskin and corduroy, chewed tobacco and spat it out between words, and was more often drunk than not. He trapped beaver and bobcats for a living, and reeked of animal fat. He bathed once a year whether he needed it or not. His habits and behavior was generally frowned upon, especially by the staunch church- goers and member of the Ladies' Relief Society. The religious ladies set out on a personal and zealous mission to reform him and, if possible, convert him to the faith in order to save his soul. It was an exercise in futility. They tried persuasion, then shamed him, but he obstinately chewed and drank and cursed his way toward damnation. The ladies warned him sternly that his evil habits would be the death of him, and that tobacco and whiskey would be his undoing. James Monroe Puffer died at the age of 1041 When he died the good ladies of the Relief Society, with all proper self-righteous acclaim, stated: "We told him that his evil habits would be the death of himl" ~

OUT TO LUNCH Heber Bennion, Jr. operated one of the largest ranches in Daggett County. When he was not ranching in our remote region of the state, Heber worked as Secretary of State, with a plush office next to the governor's in the Utah State Capitol Building in Salt Lake City. Heber like to recount the story about when he took his personal secretary out to lunch at an exclusive Salt Lake restaurant. When the waitress approached their table to take their order, Heber selected beef's tongue. His secretary twisted her face into a grimace of revulsion. "You had really ought to try it," Heber encouraged. "It's quite good." Oooo, no," she said, still contorting her face. "I don;t want anything that comes out of a cow's mouth-just give me a couple of eggs..." THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF A MODEL T FORD A familiar figure in Lucerne Valley for many years was an old Danish immigrant named Rounholt. He homesteaded forty acres in the center of the valley, and made a meager living by growing hay and grain. He lived in an old clapboard cabin with a tar paper roof, stayed mostly to himself, and drove an old Model T Ford-one of the very first to come off the assembly line. His English was broken and he lacked the confidence to speak and so remained mostly silent. Few had heard him put more than two sentences together. Old Man Rounholt-as he was commonly known-had no farm machinery. When his lucerne or wheat crop came ready to harvest, he generally hired my father to put it up for him. One day my father was in the process of mowing his hay when Old Man Rounholt came driving across the field in his old Model T. Halfway across the field the car suddenly stopped. The old man got out, walked around it a couple of times, then pulled out the hand crank and with great exertion began cranking it around and around-but the car wouldn't start. "Py yumpin' yminy." my father heard him say, "ju piss uff yunkl Vy cause ju do dis to me, ju som of da pitchl" He banged the fender several times with the crank, then turned and walked across the field to where my father was mowing hay. "Are you having car trouble?" my father asked him. "Ed, I svare I donut unnerstan' it. I py dis damn car ven it vus new an' I haf had it tventy- fife yeres an' it nefer broke down on me before; vy it break down now?" He huffed and puffed a moment or two, then added, "Ed, can I borrow yore gun?" My father was reluctant to lend the gun to him, thinking him desperate enough to turn it on himself, but in the end he relented, pulling his Winchester 30-30 from its boot on the rear of the tractor; most ranchers carried rifles to ward off predators preying on their livestock. ~ Old Man Rounholt grabbed the rifle, levered a cartridge in the chamber, then turned and retraced his steps back to the car. My father watched curiously as the old Dane stood in front of the Model T, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and fired a shot through the radiator, sending a plume of steam into the air like a geyser. Then he turned and crossed the field again, and handed the rifle back to my father.

"Py jiminy, I feels better now," he said. "Donut pother to bury dat traitor. Let her rot over she stands."

The Model T stood in the middle of the field throughout my growing years. When Old Man Rounholt died, the car was towed away and thrown into a wash to impede erosion. Eventually a bank caved over the Model t and the "murdered" car at last had its burial.

MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS

He was a late comer to the mountains. Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Joe Meek, all had preceded him, but none were greater. James Baker left his Illinois home for the Far West in 1839 at the instigation of Carson, who was his distant relation. After wandering the West as a trapper, guide, scout and indian fighter, he settled down more or less permanently in the dirt-roofed cabin of his brother John on Henry's Fork, about seven miles above that stream's confluence with the Green River at Flaming Gorge. He was a common sight in the region for the next halfcentury.

Though married to one of the many daughters of Chief Washakie of the Shoshones, he was a loner, a solitary, a dispiser of the company of men. He never wore anything other than buckskins. He packed a pistol, a Green River knife, and a tomahawk on a beaded belt. His leggins were made of wapiti hide by his wife, and his moccasins of bearskin, from the hide of a bear he had killed with his knife. His headwear alternated between fur, felt and Ute headband.

During the winter of 1877-78, the Baker brothers encountered two other brothers in Brown's Park: Frank and Jesse James. The notorious outlaw brothers, who had recently been involved in the killing of two lawmen in Wyoming, were on their way to visit an uncle in California. The Bakers invited the James boys to spend the winter in their cabin on Henry's Fork.

The Baker cabin was some thirty miles due west of Brown's Park. The journey was made in a raging snowstorm. It nearly became their last. Lost in a whiteout blizzard, they were reduced to wading upstream in the icy waters of Henry's Fork to the Baker cabin, which had been built on the north bank. Jesse James froze his feet. He thawed them out in the oven of John Baker's old "Majestic" cast iron stove. This stove was in my possession for many years.

Dick Son was John Baker's son-in-law. He had been a guide for the Prof. F.V. Hayden Expedition from the famous Peabody Museum, that collected fossils from the region and left the good doctor's name to a local landmark-Hayden Peak in the high Uintahs. Dick Son was present the day Jesse James thawed out his feet.

"You never heard such squealing in your life," Jack Son told me, "as when the feeling returned to his frozen feet." Jack was a son of Dick Son and a grandson of John Baker. "I've heard my dad tell the story a hundred times. Jesse James wailed so loud with pain it set the dogs to barking."

The James boys must have had some negative influence on Jim and John Baker. During the early eighties they joined Shadrach "Shade" Large, Elijah "Lige" Driscoll, and Isaac "Ike" Reece in the robbery of a freight office in Green River, Wyoming, about fifty miles north of their ranches on Henry's Fork. Ike Reece was wounded in the fracas. His partners in crime aided him in riding as far as Twelve Mile Butte, about three-fourths of the way home. There, at Timber Springs, they propped him up under a pinion pine and left him to die.

Back at Henry's Fork the "gang" stopped at the ranch of their friend Phil Mass and told him what had transpired. Old Phil, a former Pony Express rider whose own son, "One-eyed" Jack Mass, would one day ride with the Wild Bunch, was dismayed that they had left their friend Ike Reece to die alone.

Phil rode out to Twelve Mile Butte and there found Reece dead beneath the tree. He buried him there where he died and erected a headboard over the grave that remained for many years, and which in my youth I found and copied:

HERE LIES THE BODY OF OLD IKE REECE

HIS HEAD LIES WEST, HIS ASS LIES EAST

In 1879, Jim Baker found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Utes of northwestern Colorado, who were his longtime enemies, rebelled against the stringent measures imposed upon them by Indian agent Nathan C. Meeker. They murdered Meeker and a number of other men at the White River Agency and carried the women into captivity. They also killed Major T.T. Thornburgh and most of his troops on Milk River when they attempted to come to the rescue of the agency.

Joe Rankin, who had made a record ride north to Fort Steele, Wyoming, for help, reported that he had passed Jim Baker, not far from the agency, cowering in a ditch. Thereafter, afraid for his life, Baker constructed a two-story fortified house on the Snake River, not far from Baggs, Wyoming, where he lived out the remainder of his life. He lived to an advanced age.

In 1896 he was in Baggs, Wyoming, when Butch Cassidy and his newly organized gang rode into town to celebrate. That celebration earned them the now famous sobriquet "The Wild Bunch." One young outlaw named John "Judge" Bennett thought he would toy with the old man,

-8- then nearly eighty years old. Old Jim threshed the young rooster soundly, and threatened to scalp him with his tomahawk.

In 1897 the General Authorities of the Mormon Church extended an invitation to the old Mountain Man to attend the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in Utah. He politely declined. The last such experience he had with "civilization" proved disastrous.

The good people of Denver had honored him as a guest of the city. They made him the Grand Marshal of a parade and put him up in Denver's most posh hotel. The grand hotel was plush with bright red carpet, marble pillars, full-length mirrors and crystal chandeliers. The restaurant served live lobster and escargot. The hotel bar, also carpeted, offered more drink than he could drink with names he couldn't pronounce. Presidents and Wall Street wizards had been feted there with less ceremony than the old mountaineer.

But the entire experience was more than he could cope with. Porters discovered him in the morning asleep on the floor, the bed unslept in. He showed up at a lavish dinner, as honored guest of the mayor and local dignitaries, dressed in his buckskins and smelling of bear-grease and beaver-fat. They suggested a bath and a new suit of clothes. He averred that he had already had a bath "once this yard," and when offered a black tuxedo, he told them, "I ain't dead yet, by Godl" Flush toilets scared him to death and he refused to use one, relieving himself in the alley behind the hotel.

In the evening he came down to the bar, thinking it would at least be a familiar place; it wasn't. Red carpet, chandeliers, electric lighting, polished mirrors and stuffed velvet chairs, it was more palatial than frontier. He could not have been more out of place.

He stood at the bar, the object of scrutiny, his jaw full of chewing tobacco. He looked around for a place to spit and seeing none spat on the red carpet. A porter grabbed a polished brass spittoon and quickly sat it on top of the stain. Jim turned his head and spat in the other direction. The porter ran with the spittoon and placed it on the second stain. Again Jim turned around and spat tobacco juice on the carpet. The porter scurried with the spittoon to the new location.

"Lookee 'ere, tenderfoot," he said to the porter, "If'n ye keep a'movin' that there thing around like that, I'm liable to spit in it''

PAPA

In June of 1961 1 drove fifty-five miles across the badiands to Green River, Wyoming, to visit my old friend Tom Welch. Tom had recently turned ninety-six. He had fallen and broken his hip not long since and got about now only with the aid of a cane and half a shot of whiskey.

Because he seldom went out, the interior of the little four-room house where he lived alone smelled of stale tobacco, coffee, boiled beans, and sweat; it was not an altogether unpleasant odor. In the cool of the evening he sat in an old rocking chair on the porch, and there I found him, rocking back and forth with his memories.

He was depressed. He knew he had not much longer to live, and I knew it would probably be my last visit with him. In former times he had enjoyed reminiscing; but now he merely sat and rocked, and I would see his mind go away and hide somewhere.

"Let's get out of the house and go for a walk," I suggested, thinking the change would do him

900CL

.Where in hell can I go?" he huffed. "I can't walk very far, you know."

"Where would you like to go?"

"Well," he pondered, "I haven't been down to the Red Feather in a long time."

Near the turn of the century, Tom and Dr. hawk had formed a partnership to purchase the Red Feather Bar & Grill and the adjacent Tomahawk Hotel (named for Tom and Dr. Hawk) in the center of town. Dr. Hawk was the doctor who patched up members of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch. The money used to finance the purchase had come from Tom's participation in the Tipton, Wyoming, train robbery with Butch Cassidy on 29 August 1900. Tom was wounded in the leg during that robbery, and Dr. Hawk had removed the bullet. After Dr. Hawk's death, Tom became sole proprietor of the businesses, eventually selling out but retaining an interest in the Red Feather Bar.

The Red Feather was only four blocks east of Tom's house but he had to take the walk in slow installments. We must have seemed an incongruous pair-a ninety-six year-old man and a youth who was not yet twenty. By the time we arrived at the bar, he was working hard just to stand still.

"I shouldn't go in," I said. "I'm under age."

"Hell, I was a man before I was twelve. You're close enough."

It was cool and dark inside the bar. The evening crowd had not arrived and so it was mostly quiet, except for Johnny Cash singing, "I Tow the Line" on the jukebox. Amber lights reflected in the glass eyes of stuffed antelope heads above the counter, making them appear alive and other-worldly. In a small showcase on the end of the bar was a "Wyoming Jack-a-loupe"-a local joke invented to fool and entertain tourists-a stuffed jackrabbit mounted with small deer antlers.

Tom, who always sat at the counter, refused my help in mounting a barstool. I sat next to him and nursed a Coke while he drank Jack Daniels and chatted with the bartender. He was beginning to loosen up and relax a little. Getting out was doing him a world of good. He hadn't been out in a long time.

1 0 The only other persons in the bar besides ourselves was a couple sitting in a rear booth quietly talking over drinks and Club sandwiches. They sat in shadow and I took little notice of them.

With a little prompting Tom began to reminisce. I asked him about the black outlaw, Isom Dart, who had trained horses for the Wild Bunch, rustled cattle, and died with a bullet through his heart from the rifle of bounty hunter Tom Horn back in the year 1900.

"Hell, yes, I remember ol' Nigger Isom. he roped a bear one time up on Cold Springs Mountain, an' damn that bear got mad! It turned on the horse and started chasin' it, and ol' Isom, he dug in his spurs and yelled, 'Git up, hoss, or that black son-of-a-bitch is gonna git on behind! Tom laughed at this story as though he was hearing it himself for the first time.

The man in the booth seemed to be engrossed in our conversation. At last he picked up his drink and approached the bar, helping himself to a stool next to Tom.

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation," the man said, addressing Tom. "I'm a hunter myself. Have you ever hunted grizzly bear in Alaska?"

Tom gave this intruder a suspicious once-over. The man appeared to be in his late sixties, with a bushy grey beard that appeared to be on fire from the reflection of the red neon "Red Feather" sign behind the bar. He wore a fedora hat and khaki safari jacket over a red flannel shirt.

But Tom, even at ninety-six, was himself a strong figure of a man. He topped six-feet-four and weighed well over 200 pounds-all of it muscle. He had lived an active outdoor life and was still lean and tough. He had killed several men that I was aware of, one as late as 1920, and had once got into a gunfight with my grandfather. He was a former cattleman, livestock inspector, deputy sheriff, and member of the Wild Bunch. He was a man to be reckoned with at any age. I always had a healthy fear of him.

"Can't say that I have ever hunted grizzlies in Alaska," he replied at last to the stranger's inquiry. "Had a griz hunt me once though, just south of here, over in the Uintah Mountain country."

"You don't say? I'd like to hear that story. Bartender-top off this drink for me, will you? And another round for my new friends."

For the next two hours they swapped stories. I listened to tales of safari in Africa by the stranger, countered by a tale of elk hunting in Jackson Hole by Tom; tigers in India versus mountain lions in Colorado; marlin fishing off the coast of Cuba versus 200-pound pike on the Columbia. The two men, thoroughly engrossed in their vaunting duel, completely ignored me-the kid-in their enthusiasm.

The lady in the booth ordered another sandwich for herself and invited me to join her.

"Papa talks too much when he's drinking," she told me, "but he's been so depressed lately, I simply don't have the heart to stop him now. He seems to be enjoying himself so much."

A few customers came into the bar during the course of the evening and soon joined the growing throng of spectators enthralled by the stories. Never have such talks been told by such spinners of fascination. Every story was topped by the next. When there was drama, the bar fell hushed; when there was humor, the listeners roared and slapped their knees. Both of the men were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

At last, however, the lady left the booth and approached her husband.

"Forgive me for interrupting," she told him, speaking as one familiar with diplomacy, "but it's getting late, Papa, and we have a long drive ahead of us." The man glanced at his watch.

"My wife is quite right, gentlemen. I have been enjoying myself so much I forgot the hour. We're on our way home to Ketchum, Idaho. I'm afraid I'll have to drive all night now to make it, but it's been worth it."

He shook hands all the way around. He thanked Tom profusely for what he said had been one of the best evenings of his life.

"You know, Tom," he ejaculated, "someday somebody had ought to write your story."

Tom turned to gaze at me.

"Well, this here young man has offered to write about me more than once, but I don't want my name in no damned book!"

The stranger shook my hand firmly, then leaned over and said, sotto voce: "You should do it. Write his story." He adjusted his fedora and without looking back went out the door, his wife on his arm.

"Damned nice feller," Tom said, whether to himself I do not know.

"Don't you know who that was?" The bartender interjected excitedly. "That was Ernest Hemingwayl"

The bar fell quiet.

"Who the hell is Ernest Hemingway?" Tom asked.

On 3 July 1961, at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, Ernest Hemingway stuck the muzzle of a shotgun in his mouth and blew his brains out.

Sources:

Interviews: Tom Welch; W.J. Clark; Edward Boren; Wilford Tolten; Willard Schofield; Heber Bennion, Jr.; Jack Son.

The Escapades of Frank & Jesse James, Carl W. Breihan

Personal communication with Ernest Hemingway.