The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1876-09-22

family, and well educated, and had
sought the west and adopted the trap.
per's vocation, imPelled solely by the
spirit of adventure which leads so many
young men to make sacrifices the
: advantages of good home and the COM
panionship of friends TO plung into a life
of hardship and danger Howe had,
among other trappers, an excellent friend
named Larpenteur, then quite a young
man, who subsequently passed forty
years on the plains, and became well
known upon the frontier AS they
marched along together, witnesses of the
mad antics and bellowings of the bull,
Howe, with white face and trembling.
voice, would say: "Larpenteur, don't
you hear the bull? He is going mad.
am beginning to get frightened Do
You think shall go mad ?'' Then, re-
lapsing into painful thought on the hor-
rible prospect, he would ere long again
break silence in a piteous appeal to his
| friends for the comforting assurance that
he should probably escape so dreadful
fate. Larpenteur, with heart wruue |
with affectionate sympathy, made these |
Questions in voice of forced steadiness |
as eonsoling reply as he might; but
with the conviction in his heart that
Howe was doomed, his words but feebiv |
concealed his own forebodings. The Big
Horn was reached. CampbelPs party,
including Larpenteur, fell to work upon
the boats of skins in which they were to
float down the Big Horn and Yellow
stone to the Missouri, while Fontenelle
turned to scatter his band through the
beaver grounds to begin the seasons
tenelle, and thus did not witness the
death of the bull, which occurred soon
after from well developed case of
hydroPhobia. But poor Howe was
constantly tortured with dread; he
seemed impressed with the hopelessness
of his escape, and bitter and terrible
were his reflections at the prospect of
thus miserably perishing far from home
and triends-friends who might never
know his fate. Alas that he had ever
left them. Would that upon this
August day he might stand again within
hearing of the dear ones at that door :
the door of his fathers house-out of
which not many months before, he had
ioyously passed, seeking adventure, and
only achieving an end like this Would
that the brown and treeless prairie
which he now traversed in such despon-
dency and horror, might be replaced by
the green grass upon which he gamboled
in boyhoOd, and the leafy coverts whose 7
graceful shade had sheltered him from
the summer heats on many a day like
this. !
But let US dwell no longer upon his
suferings. This mental anguish, this +
dread of the impending fate-one of the 7
earliest symptoms of hydrophobia-was
soon followed by other symptoms more +
He would turn pale at
sight of the small streams on the route, :,
cross them with trembling, and finally, g
oveFeame by his dread of water. dared :
lOt cross them Mt all. 1t became nee ;,
sssary to cover him with a blanket and :,
AIRY him across, the mere sight of water
throwing him into convulsions. At
ength it became difficult to get him :
llongat all, and one afternoon, not far
rom the proposed camping ground, he
vas left behind in care of two men until
ne should recover from a fit into which
ne had fallen The attendants soon
vearied of their task, and came into
amp without him.
Fontenelle Immediately sent back
party to bring him in, but when they
arrived at the spot where he had been
eft they found only the torn remnants
If his clothing, which he had evidently
stripped off in his paroxysms, and then !.
led naked into the wilderness. He was , I,
lever found, and undoubtedly perished
in his forlorn condition, with
'ut companion to solace his dying :
or friendly hand to bury u
lis remains.