Julianna

“He lives hard, works hard, has but few comforts and fewer necessities. He has but little, if any, taste for reading. He enjoys a coarse practical joke or smutty story; loves danger but abhors labor of the common kind; never tires riding, never wants to walk, no matter how short the distance he desires to go. He would rather fight with pistols than pray; loves tobacco, liquor and women better than any other trinity. His life borders nearly upon that of an Indian. If he reads anything, it is in most cases a blood and thunder story of sensational style. He enjoys his pipe, and relishes a practical joke on comrades, or a corrupt tale, wherein abounds much vulgarity and animal propensity.”
― Joseph Mccoy

“Among the white scouts were numbered some of the most noted of their class. The most prominent man among them was "Wild Bill".

Wild bill was a strange character, just the one which a novelist might gloat over.

Whether on foot or on horseback, he was one of the most perfect types of physical manhood I ever saw. Of his courage there could be no question; it had been brought to the test on too many occasions to admit a doubt.

His skill in the use of the rifle and pistol was unerring; while his deportment was exactly the opposite of what might be expected from a man of his surroundings. It was entirely free of bluster or bravado.

He seldom spoke of himself unless requested to do so. His conversation, strange to say, never bordered either on the vulgar or blasphemous.

His influence among the frontiersmen was unbounded, his word was law; and many are the personal quarrels and disturbances which he has checked among his comrades by his simple announcement that "this has gone far enough" if need be followed by the ominous warning that when persisted in or renewed the quarreler "must settle it with me".

Wild Bill is anything but a quarrelsome man; yet no one but himself can enumerate the many conflicts in which he has been engaged, and which have almost invariably resulted in the death of his adversary.

I have personal knowledge of at least half a dozen men whom he has at various times killed, one of these being at the time a member of my command.

Wild Bill always carried two handsome ivory-handled revolvers of the large size; he was never seen without them. Where this is the common custom, brawls or personal difficulties are seldom if ever settled by blows.

The quarrel is not from word to blow, but from a word to revolver, and he who can draw and fire first is the best man.

An item which has been floating lately through the columns of the press states that, "the funeral of 'Jim Bludso,' who was killed the other day by 'Wild Bill' took place today" and then adds: "The funeral expenses were borne by 'Wild Bill'"

What could be more thoughtful than this? Not only to send a fellow mortal out of the world, but to pay the expenses of the transit.”
― George Armstrong Custer, My Life on the Plains: Or, Personal Experiences with Indians

“I prepared to explore it as I had done the others; but no sooner had I entered the lodge than my fire failed me, leaving me in total darkness.

Handing it out to the doctor to be relighted, I began feeling my way about the interior of the lodge. I had almost made the circuit when my hand came in contact with a human foot; at the same time a voice unmistakably Indian, and which evidently came from the owner of the foot, convinced me that I was not alone.

I would have gladly placed myself on the outside of the lodge and there matured plus for interviewing its occupant; but, unfortunately, to reach the entrance of the lodge, I must either pass over or around the owner of the before-mentioned foot and voice.

Could I have been convinced that among its other possessions there was neither tomahawk nor scalping-knife, pistol nor war club, or any similar article of the noble red man's toilet, I would have risked an attempt to escape through the low narrow opening of the lodge; but who ever saw an Indian without one or all of these interesting trinkets?

Had I made the attempt, I should have expected to encounter either the keen edge of the scalping-knife or the blow of the tomahawk and to have engaged in a questionable struggle for life. This would not do.

I crouched in silence for a few moments, hoping the doctor would return with the lighted fire. I need not say that each succeeding moment spent in the darkness of that lodge seemed like an age.

I could hear a slight movement on the part of my unknown neighbor, which did not add to my comfort. Why does the doctor not return?

At last I discovered the approach of a light on the outside. When it neared the entrance I called to the doctor and informed him that an Indian was in the lodge, and that he had better have his weapons ready for a conflict.

With his lighted fire in one hand and docked revolver in the other, the doctor cautiously entered the lodge.

And there, directly between us, wrapped in a buffalo robe, lay the cause of my anxiety - a little Indian girl, probably ten years old; not a full blood, but a half-breed.

She was terribly frightened to find herself in our hands, with none of her people near. Why was she left behind in this manner?

This little girl, who was at first an object of our curiosity, became at once an object of our pity.

The Indians, an unusual thing for them to do toward their own blood, had willfully deserted her; but this, alas! was the least of their injuries to her.

After being shamefully abandoned by the entire village, a few of the young men of the tribe returned to the deserted lodge, and upon the person of this little girl, committed outrages, the details of which are too sickening for these pages.

She was carried to the fort and placed under the care of kind hands and warm hearts, where everything was done for her comfort that was possible.”
― George Armstrong Custer, My Life on the Plains: Or, Personal Experiences with Indians

“There is, perhaps, no class of men on the face of the earth, says Captain Bonneville, who lead a life of more continued exertion, peril, and excitement, and who are more enamored of their occupations, than the free trappers of the West. No tail, no danger, no privation can turn the trapper from his pursuit. His passionate excitement at times resembles mania. In vain may the most vigilant and cruel savages best his path, in vain may rocks and precipices and wintry torrents oppose his progress, let but a single track of a beaver meet his eye, and he forgets all the dangers and defies all difficulties. At times, he may be seen with his traps on his shoulder, buffeting his way across rapid streams, amidst floating blocks of ice: at other times, he is to be found with his traps swung on his back clambering the most rugged mountains, scaling or descending the most frightful precipices, searching, by routes inaccessible to the horse, and never before trodden by white man, for springs and lakes unknown to his comrades, and where he may meet with his favorite game. Such is the mountaineer, the hardy trapper of the West, and such, as we have slightly sketched it, is the wild, Robin Hood kind of life, with all its strange and motley populace, now existing in full vigor among the Rocky Mountains.”
― Washington Irving