The Shasta courier., 1860-06-30
A Prairie Story.

The Hon. Grantley F. Berkeley, in his notes
on Western travel now being published in the
London Field, gives the following as one of the
stories told him in St. Louis:
"After great many consultations in Mr.. !
Campb ellis counting house, with several persons
supposed to be conversant with prairie life, |
soon began to see that veracity was very far
from being an object of veneratiou, and that if
any man had been as far across the desert as
the Rocky Mountains, it was impossible to be-
lieve word he said. Either the climate of those
wild hills, or the fact that when a man quilted !
the frontier settlements he left all observers be-
hind, so inhamed or enlarged his Imagination
that the action of the hour was forgotten in the
mists OF mental reflection, and the traveller be-
came visionary instead of verify to be relied
on. From one of these gentlemen | had been
in the habit of taking advice, when all that he
had told me was considerably shaken by the
following story he was very fond of telling.
He was out on the plains in winter time, and
by some accident severed from his party night
come on, and with it the most intense FROST and
he found his vital energies failing, and saw moth
ing, until bison came to his assistance, but de-
struction staring him in the face. The friendly
bison approached without any idea in his shaggy
head half so extensive comfortable as per-
tanned to the uses to which he was presently to
be put; and my adviser, with just strength
enough left in him to level his rifle, numbed fin
gers and all, was lucky enough to hit the bison
just through the heart, and drop him dead con-
veniently for future operations. Having
| freshed himself with a bit of warm flesh,
my adviser then cut the bison open and took
out the entrails and as it was just getting dark,
to save his life from the intense Frost he
| placed the entrails with his own body and crept
into the carcass of the animal with his head
toward the tail, and his feet pushed up his wind
pipe, the skin, where it had been divided, per-
mitted to fall as a curtain to the ground. Here
| he revelled in animal heat, not in the least in
| commoded by that enormous quantity of blood
and moisture which have since seen contained
in the carcass of an animal of this size, and at
last fell asleep. How long he continued in COM
| Portable oblivion he is not quite sure, always
desirous of being exact, but he awoke with
sensation OF cold, and found that every limb save
| his hands, which he had fortunately kept folded
under his chin, were not only benumbed, but
the blood and moisture had become frame of
ice, and the severed skin of the animal itself had
frozen firmly and immovably to the grouad.-
Thus, then, he was iced for the rest of his life
"a sort of forced meat, in fact, in the bovine
rossole" which surrounded him, with no
white-capped and aproned cook to deliver the
Buffalo of his despairing burthen. oimultane-
ously with his awakening from his sleep, how
ever he had been aware of a strange noise out
side the frozen case which compassed him; So,
with ears sharpened by necessity, he endeavored
to discover the cause The external rattling and
scratching continued, till slight openings ad-
mitted CLEAN of the intensely cold morning
moon when through the crevices he could
plainly distinguish the gnawing, crunching of
bones, snaring and fighting of large drove of
wolves. Here, then, was Scylla to the Cha
| rvhdis which elrea dy contained him and q mora
active or pending dissolution was thus fearfuy
around for, sportsman as he was, he well knew
| that there was always an immense and hasty
| scramble among animals-of prey for the choice
intestines of a body. Bold, not with brandy
bat whisky (for be at once, and on the moment
empted his flask) and desperate with distress,
he resolved on action, and abided time and
here, again, in this, his dreadful, hour of need
his knowledge of sport and the habits of wolves
did not desert him. He recollected that the
easiest portion off bisons frame, by which for
a wolf to gain hold on the intestines was
from beneath the tail; so be awaited the result,
| and kept his hands in readiness. All at once
with eagerness only parallel to his hunger, an
immense old wolf rent the fanks asunder suffi-
ciently to thrust his head and shoulders into the
bison, in search of, to him, delicious reward.
The VOLTS horror, however, at once may be con-
ceived, when my friend as suddenly seized him
Oh either cheek, and clung TO the head of his
deliverer for dear life. So surprised at this un-
wonted reception was the beast, that he yelled
with terror, while with all the strength of his
back and launches, aided by his fore feet he
contrived to withdraw, pulling the appendage
along with him. The result of the yells of the
master wolf as well as his great strength, were
alike favorable to my friend; the former so
frightened the rest of the wolves that they fed
away, and the latter brought my friend forth of
his '' lodging on the cold ground" and rendered
him up to the gray dawn of the coming morn"
And what became of the delivering wolff al
let him go, sir. Yes, sir, as he pulled
me out of the carcass of the buffalo, let him
go? and he fed after his scared companions =
Yes, sir, that's factl'
recount this tale as it was told to me, and,
in justice to my friend, | must say that l fully
believe that he has told the story himself so
often that he is convinced of the truth of it
that, however, is nothing to me, further than it,
at the time raised fear that the rest of the
intelligence, propounded for my future guidance,
might have been of the same substance as the
story l have just narrated"