Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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The deer, more numerous in earlier days, had been pretty well killed out by this time. Though, as late as 1880, I, myself, shot a deer on that same run. Also I recall having seen one band of antelope, that fleet-footed little animal of deer family which could outrun the wind even in its then unhampered sweep across the prairies. I was too young to identify the little ruminants, but my father said they were antelope, and he was a hunter of the Daniel Boone type—in fact had hunted in Dan’s old territory, and he knew his game.

Here I will say the Indian, Na-che-seah, was the leader of that hunting party. He was tall, lithe, and straight as an arrow. In later years, with generous expansion of body, he was known as Big Simon. He died May 27, 1934. As I looked upon the still form of this good Indian, in his wigwam, on the day of the funeral, my mind drifted back across the years to the time of our first meeting—but instead of fear, it was now reverence that gripped me. Big Simon was a man of authority among the Indians for a great many years—though, contrary to newspaper reports, he was never chief. About his age, Big Simon would say, “Hundred years, maybe. Don’t know.” With the passing of Big Simon, Commodore Cat is the sole surviving member of the old, old tribe. He too may have been one of those blanketed redmen back there on that deer trail six decades ago.