nant-Colonel Henry Leavenworth (Fort Leavenworth of Kansas is
named for him) of the Sixth United States Infantry, hastened up with
six companies of regulars, several cannon and three keel-boats. Joshua
Pilcher, president of the Missouri Fur Company, joined him; General
Ashley and Major Henry met him with other men; four or five hundred
Sioux enlisted--the Sioux hated the Arikaras. And all together (except
that the Sioux soon quit, disgusted with the way the white soldiers
fought) they battered at the Arikara village from a distance until the
enemy announced that it was time to make peace.

Now Major Henry took eighty men and once again set out, with horses and
packs, for the Yellowstone, to finish the season. He had a fine
company--the pick of the rank and file: Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger,
William ("Billy") Sublette whom the Indians were to name "Cut Face" and
"Left Hand," Davy Jackson, old "Cut Nose" Edward Rose who was half
white, one quarter Cherokee and one quarter negro and had been a chief
of the Crows, "old" Hugh Glass, and others.

Major Henry, of the dark hair, blue eyes, and fondness for the violin,
had only fair luck on this trip. Trapper Hugh Glass had much worse, at
the beginning, although he ended well.

He was from Pennsylvania, but was no greenhorn on the beaver trail, or
else they would not have called him "old." The title "old" announced
that a man was "beaver wise" and "Injun wise." So "old" Hugh Glass was
a leather-faced, leather-clad, whiskered veteran of probably not over
forty years but of the right experience as a "_hivernan_" or "winterer."

The route taken left the Missouri River, to cut across country more to
the westward, for the Yellowstone direct. Near evening of the fifth
day out they all had turned up the Grand River, still in present South
Dakota, and the hunters were riding widely or trudging through the
river thickets, looking for meat.

This was elk, deer and buffalo country--also bear country. Those were
days when the grizzly bear ranged the plains as far east as the Upper
Missouri; and he posed as the monarch of all he surveyed. The Lewis
and Clark men had discovered him on their outward trip in 1804-1805;
they had brought back astonishing reports of him. He stood almost nine
feet tall, on his hind legs; his fore paws were nine inches across; his
claws were over four inches long; his tusks were prodigious; his nose
as large as that of an ox; and two men could scarcely