William F. Drannan - Captain W.F. Drannan – Chief of Scouts

I remember one little circumstance that occurred later on; it was about the middle of the afternoon; we had all been to our traps and had returned to the cabin with our furs. Jim said, "Will, we will stretch your furs if you will go and shoot a deer for supper."

This suited me, so I took my gun and went outside the door to clean it. Just as I had got through, Jonnie West looked out and said, "Look, Will, there is your deer now; you won't have to hunt him."

I looked, and sure enough, there he was, in about a hundred yards of the cabin. Jim Bridger fired at him and knocked him down, but he got up and ran into a little bunch of brush. I ran to the spot, thinking he was only wounded and that I should have to shoot him again. When I reached the brush, to my surprise, I found five big wildcats, and they all came for me at once. I fired at the leader, and then I did some lively running myself. As soon as I got out of the brush, I called the boys, and we got the cats, the whole of the bunch, and the deer besides, which had not been touched by the cats.

We skinned the cats, and Jim afterwards made a cap out of one of them, and he wore it for several years.

Jonnie West and I were out hunting one day for deer when we discovered two cougars in the grass, and we could not make out what it meant. Finally one made a spring, and it seemed to us that he jumped at least twenty feet, and he landed on a deer, and for a minute or two there was a tussle. While this was going on Jonnie and I were getting closer to them, and when they had the deer killed we were within gunshot of them, and they didn't eat much before we killed them both. We skinned the deer, and also the cougars, and took them to camp, and when we went to Bent's Fort the next spring we got twenty dollars apiece for them, for they were extra large cougars, or mountain lions as they are sometimes called, and their hides are very valuable.

It seems wonderful to me when I think of the amount of game I saw through the country at that time, of all descriptions, some of which in their wild state are now extinct, especially the buffalo and the bison, and all other game that was so plentiful at that time is very scarce all over the west. I believe a man could have seen a thousand antelope any day in the year within five miles of where the city of Denver now stands.

We had splendid success this winter in trapping beaver. It was late in the spring when we left our trapping ground. Just before we pulled out Jim Bridger said, "Boys, I saw a pretty sight this evening out at the point of rocks," which was about a quarter of a mile from our cabin. Jonnie West said, "What did you see, Jim?"

"I saw an old Cinnamon bear and two cubs." Jonnie said, "Why didn't you kill her?"

"I didn't have anything to kill with," Jim replied. "I left my gun in the cabin, but we will all go out in the morning and see if we can find them."

We were all up early in the morning and ready for the bear hunt. Jim told us what route each should take. He said, "Now boys, be careful, for she is an old whale, and if you get in to a fight with her some one will get hurt, or there will be some running done."

I had not gone far when I looked up on a ridge ahead of me and saw what I took to be Mrs. Bruin; I crawled up within gun shot and fired and broke the bear's neck. I rushed up to her expecting to see the cubs. Imagine my surprise when I found only a small bear. In a few moments the boys were there; Jonnie laughed and asked Jim if that bear was the whale he set out to kill. Jim stood and looked at the bear quite a bit before answering. Then he said, "That is a Cinnamon Bear, but where are the cubs?" Jonnie said, "I will bet my hat you didn't see any cubs, Jim, you dreamed it." Jim grinned and answered, "Well, boys I guess you have the drop on me this time."

From then on, all the spring Jim's cubs was a standing joke. In a few days, we pulled out for Bent's Fort; we were late in getting to the Fort with our furs this spring. Mr. Bent asked us why we were so late in getting in. Jonnie replied that Jim kept us hunting for Cub bears all the spring, and as we couldn't find any, it took all our time. Of course they all wanted to know the joke, and when Jonnie told it in his droll way, it made a laugh on Jim. "If you will only quit talking about the cubs," Jim said, "I'll treat all around," which cost him about ten dollars.

After laying around the Fort a few days, Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux hired Jonnie and me to kill meat to supply the table at the boarding house for the summer, that being the only time of the year that the boarding house at the Fort did any business. At this time of the year all of the trappers and hunters were staying at the fort with nothing to do but eat, drink and spend their money that they had earned the winter before. It was no uncommon thing for some of these men to bring from three to four hundred dollars worth of furs to Bent's Fort in the spring, and when fall came and it was time to go back to the trapping ground, they wouldn't have a dollar left, and some of them had to go in debt for their winter outfit.

Jonnie and I had no trouble in keeping plenty of meat on hand, from the fact that buffalo and antelope were very plentiful eight or ten miles from the fort. I remember one little circumstance that occurred this summer. We were out hunting, not far from the Arkansas river, near the city now known as Rocky Ford, Colo. We had camped there the night before. We went out early in the morning to kill some antelope, leaving our horses staked where we had camped. We hadn't gone more than half a mile when we heard a Lofa wolf howl just ahead of us. The Lofa wolf was a very large and ferocious animal and was a terror to the buffalo. When we reached the top of a ridge just ahead of us, looking down into a little valley two or three hundred yards away, we saw five Buffalo cows with their calves, and one large bull, and they were entirely surrounded by Lofa wolves. Jonnie said, "Now, Will, we will see some fun." The cows were trying to defend their calves from the wolves, and the bull started off with his head lowered to the ground, trying to drive the wolves away with his horns. This he continued to do until he had driven the wolves thirty yards away. All at once a wolf made a bark and a howl which seemed to be a signal for a general attack, for in a moment, the wolves were attacking the Buffalo on every side, and I don't think it was five minutes before they had the bull dead and stretched out. Until then I had never thought that wolves would attack a well Buffalo, but this sight convinced me that they could and would kill any buffalo they chose to attack.

We went back to camp, packed up our meat, and pulled out for the fort. When we got there I told Jim Bridger about the fight the wolves had with the buffalos, and he said, "If you had seen as much of that as I have, you would know that wolves signal to each other and understand each other the same as men do."

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It was early in the spring of fifty when Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, and myself met at Bent's Fort, which was on the head waters, of the Arkansas river. Bridger and I had just got in from our winter's trapping ground and had disposed of our furs to a very good advantage; Carson had just returned from a trip back east. Carson said to Bridger, "Now Jim, I'll tell you what I want you to do. I want you and Will (meaning me) to go over to Fort Kerney and escort emigrants across to California this season, for the gold excitement back in the eastern states is something wonderful, and there will be thousands of emigrants going to the gold fields of California, and they do not know the danger they will have to contend with, and you two men can save thousands of lives this summer by going to Fort Kerney and meeting the emigrants there and escorting them through. Now boys, you must understand that this undertaking is no child's play. In doing this apparently many times you will seem to take your lives in your own hands, for the Indians will be worse on the plains this year than they ever have been. At the present time there is no protection for the emigrant from the time they get twenty-five miles west of Fort Kerney, until they cross the Sierra Nevada mountains, and there are to be so many renegades from justice from Illinois and Missouri that it is going to be fearful this season, for the renegade is really worse in some respects than the Indian. He invariably has two objects in view. He gets the Indian to commit the murder which is a satisfaction to him without any personal risk besides the plunder he gets. I know, boys, you can get good wages out of this thing, and I want you to take hold of it, and you, Jim, I know have no better friend than Gen. Kerney, and he will assist you boys in every way he can. I almost feel as though I ought to go myself, but I cannot leave my family at the present time; now, Jim, will you go?" Bridger jumped up, rubbed his hands together and said, "I'll be dog goned if I won't, if Will goes with me."