DRAWINGS
BY
FREDERIC REMINGTON
NEW YORK: R. H. RUSSELL
LONDON: LAWRENCE & BULLEN
MDCCCXCVII
Copyright, 1897, by Robert Howard Russell.
Printed in the United States.
| List of Drawings |
Concerning the Contents
SOME time ago I was spending a driven but happy forenoon among thoseshops where guns, and fishing tackle, and tents, and all the variousnecessities of a Western holiday are found. My time was crowded, andagainst the column of items on my list only a few checks had been made,when I reached “Groceries.” Now, unless you have spent such forenoonsand holidays yourself, the visit among the guns and fishing tackle mayseem to raise questions of greater moment than any which could occur inthe grocery shop. But this is not so. A man soon learns what weapons heprefers, and enters with his mind settled in advance; whereas, when itcomes to evaporated vegetables, condensed soups, and pellets that canexpand into a meal, you pause over each novelty, and with dividedpurpose wretchedly choose and unchoose until you are scarce more manlikethan a woman. At least, such is my case; and having no minutes tosquander this forenoon, I had pencilled my supplies to avoid discussionand temptation. Even while I was directing how I wished the parcelstied, mentioning that they were to be much jolted on the backs ofhorses, the shopman looked suddenly alert, and said this sounded like acamping trip. Yes, I told him in my elation, I was bound for the headwaters of Wind River in Wyoming. Instantly the merchant fell from him;every trace of groceries left his expression; his eye beamed witheagerness, and he asked in the voice of one who gives the countersign,“Have you ever been to Arizona?” and hearing that I had, “I served thereunder Crook!” he exclaimed. Then names of the North and the South cameto his lips—San Carlos, San Simon, the Gila, the Chiricahuas, the TontoBasin, the forks of the Owyhee, Boise, Bidwell, Harney—he spoke of manyfamiliar to me; and next we were hard at it, this old soldier andmyself, exchanging enthusiasms, gossiping in comradeship among the driedprunes. Thus I wasted minutes that I could not spare, yet lost nothingby it; my parcels were put up right. And when this errand was finished,he watched me depart from the shop door, and sighed, “I should like tosee it all again!”
Since that day I have gone back to him, not always to buy groceries, butjust to pass the word, and thus in the midst of city streets to conjureup Arizona, or Idaho, or Wyoming. My journeys through those regions havecome after his time. I know none of his dangers and not many of hishardships. But I too have seen Summer and Winter in the Rocky Mountains,and the sun rise; and have slept and marched on trails where he wentonce. Between us is established a freemasonry: both of us have been outthere; both of us understand. It matters not that one was an enlistedman campaigning against Indians, while the other i