Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/126

90 West I am greatly indebted for the limited education I now possess; and were he now living I could not express to him my gratitude for his labors as my tutor in that lonely wilderness, hundreds of miles from any white man's habitation. And, although my education is quite limited, yet what little I do possess has been of great value to me through life.

We had good success trapping this winter, until about the first of January, when we had an unusual heavy fall of snow in the mountains which drove all the game to the lowlands, nothing being left that was fit for meat except a few mountain sheep, and the snow made it very inconvenient getting around to attend to the traps. In the latter part of February I asked Charlie Jones one day to go down to Mountain Phil's camp and see if there was anything that he wanted, as we had kept all the extra supplies at our camp. Mountain Phil and his Klooch—that being the name he called his squaw, which is also the Arapahoe name for wife—were staying alone about ten miles further down the country from where we were located.

On Charlie Jones' return, he said: "It seems that Mountain Phil has been faring better than any of us, for he has been able to kill his meat at camp, thereby saving him the trouble of having to get out and hunt for it."

Johnnie and I did not understand what he meant by this. So, after hesitating a moment, Jones said: "Boys, if I should tell you what I know about Mountain Phil, you would not believe it, but as sure as you live he has killed his squaw and eaten most of her, and he has left his camp."