Frozen Toes - Part 1

There be some fella's who like one wurd diskripshuns; fella's who'll give it to you a nutshell - a really small nutshell. Fer example, one o' dese fellas might jest have survived bein' scalped by savages, and all he'll say is, "Ouch!". Dat's rather borin', ain't it? Setch a deskripshun jest don't make fer a very rip-roarin' tale. No, siree, not a bit of it. It jest don't give you enuff facts and lies to make anythin' out of. And I can't stand dat. So, I do 'ere swear to do no setch nutshellin' with this 'ere yarn. I'll be agiving it to yer da way it oughta be gave - plain and simple with maybe a lie er two thrown in ta give it flavor...

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Day 1 (Wednesday, Nov. 11) - Little Big Man, Mountain Man, and yer's truly loaded our gear onto our mules and headed off to da wilderness kountry around Fort Stanton, where we pitched camp to rendezvous with other trappers fer 'bout five days.

When we'd finished settin' up camp about late afternoon, I started rustling up some grub. Yep, I were nominated ta be camp cook again (which means dey either like my vittles or don't want to do da cookin' themselves). It be a job o' great responsibility and it can get tirin' sometimes. However, every job usually has a benefit er two in it. If yer camp cook, ya get ta plan what sorta grub to take, get a big say in how it's prepared, and (usually) you don't have to do no dishes. Yer pals also tend ta treat you with a bit o' respect, too. After all, it usually ain't wise ta mess around with the fella dat handles yer dinner, considerin' he jest might decide to get even by doin' somethin' weird to it .

But to get on with the story, we finally did get around to scarfing down eatin' a fine meal, washed down with some kinda funny tastin' beverage da flat-landers call gatorade (what it be, I'll never know). Afterwards, we sat 'round da fire, talkin' and exchanging lies true yarns with friends. When we finally went ta crawl inter our bedrolls, it were probbly 'bout 8:30 (a rather early bedtime, but we always hit the hay earlier than usual on rendezvous). And yep, it got cold. Big surprise.

Our Tent

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Day 2 (Wednesday, Nov. 12) - Da followin' mornin', after going through da frigid routine of donning our outfits (cold buckskins are extremely unpleasant to put on), we had a quick breakfast, and den began assemblin' our shootin' gear. It were lucky we did so, cuz... a minute later, a dozen blood-curdlin' yells split the air and injuns leapt from da bushes! In no time at all, we wuz engaged in a hand ta hand battle with doze murderous - ah, never mind (de Editor's acomin' this way with his bull whip... an' he ain't lookin' very pleasant).

What I mean ta say is, after we'd gotten our gun stuff together, we ambled on over to da shootin' range where we encountered the deadly... steel targets (man, I liked the injun fightin' idea better). We loaded our smokepoles, and began takin' down deze opponents in short order. In all, dere were 'bout thirty of 'em, rangin' from thirty to one hundred-forty yards away. Dere were basic ones (like plates and squares), animal shaped ones, bizarre ones (which looked like nuthin' in particlur), and plain difficult ones (like a thin steel pipe hangin' in a tree at ninety-yards). They wuz great ta shoot at, but as far as makin' good meat goes, methinks they'd be a bit hard on da teeth.

Dad shootin'...

Yer's truly shootin'...

Little Big Man, contemplatin' the seriousness o' the task at hand...

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And we wuzn't the only mountain men campaignin' agin' the might of the steel thingies...

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Persevero,

Scribe