The Arizona sentinel., 1888-01-07
AN ERUDITE HERMIT.
The Queor and Lonely Western Home of
an Aged Scholar.


an Aged Scholar.
On the right bank of Green river,
twenty miles or more from the town
of Granger Wy, is singular
dwelling. Architecturally it combines
the dug g-out of the plains with the old
log g,eabin of the oak openings. In its
isolation and security it is castle; in
homely simplicity and dreary sur
roundings it is a-hovel. From the out
side you would call it potato cellar
or q moorland stable, but once insid
the oaken door you pronounce it a
museum of natural history. The room
is trif, longer than it is wide. Op.
positc the door is a small camp cook
ing stove, fanked on one side by a
large packing-box, used for wash
stand, and on the other by plain cup
board.
Against one wall is rude bunk,
made of boards, filled with hay and
covered with coarse gray blankets.
Over this, pendant from a noble pair
of antlers, is Winchester rifle, cart
ridge-belt and q huntin g-knife. On
the other side of the room is rustic
bookcase. The floor is of clay, hard
and cold, save for the black bearskin
in front of the bed and the tawny
coyote hide by the stove. Scattered
about are traps of various sizes,
chains, fishin g-tackle, pelts, bird skins,
urOpnrinS 1nd o1othinO
The occupant is evidently hermit.
His character. for he is not at home,
we will discover from hasty perusal
of the books upon his shelves. He
must be man of education and refine
ment. Here is Shakespeare, Bacon,
Milton and Pope. Novelists are repre-
sented by Hawthorne, Cooper, George
Eliot, Thackeray, Scott and Ebers.
Kant, Newton, Hamilton and McCosh
have their place. Isis UnvaiIedn is be.
side Atlantis" There are old maga-
zines and standa works on hunting,
trapping and natural history. and in
its old leather covers is an edition of
CicerO's DE Senectute," the title of
which bears the simple inscription:
g. --, Dartmouth College, 1913. "
Evidently our hero has more of a
history than many of the characters of
modern fiction. Here he comes now,
through the sagebrush-a rifle slung
on his shoulder, the hind quarters and
.hida of an antelope on his back.
Grizzled :. and weather beaten. his
esixty-odd Years have made him as
tough aud sturdy as the gnarled oak.
His kindly welcome assures us that he
does not regard all intruders as ene-
mics, and ave are soon eating venison
steak, using pocket-knives for forks,
and drinking coffee from the common
cup. After supper, as we sat around
the. warm fire and clouded the atmos-
phere- with fumes from corncob pipes
he told rs tile story of his life.
After his graduation he was smitten
with the gold4fever, and after long
trip around the Horn reached Califor-
MIA in the spring of 1850 The next
seventeen years were spent in pros
pecting, and his fortieth year found
him disappointed and disheartened
man, so far as wealth and worldly
success were concerned. The golden
treasure was always in sight, but never
within his grasp. As in hundreds of
similar cases. others reaped rich bene-
fits from his lab ors. Then he devoted
himself to hunting and trapping in the
Sierra, along Snake river, and finally
in Wyoming, where he had been for the
last seven years.
His friends are dead. H. has no
love for the world from which he has
been so long an alien, and he expects
to die as he has lived, alone. He is
no longer poor, but might live in COM
fort on the savings of the past twenty
years. But no; he is too settled in his
life TO exchange it for the privileges of
civilization. Coyote hides, beaver
pelts and the skins of black bear and
"silver tips do more than support
him, and his spare time is devoted to
rewriting his copious notes on the
fauna of the Sierra and the Rocky
mountains. And so, unknown in life,
he hopes to save his name from obliv-
ion by giving to the world of natural
lists the results of his patient study and
observation. =. :..r't
We're his case an isolated one
should not have mentioned it. But
such is not the fact The mountains
of the West are full of misanthropic
men who love nature with all the in
tensity of Burroughs and John Muir,
who, for her sake. make their homes
in the wilderness and feel absolute en-
joyment only as she reveals to them
her secrets and hidden mysteries.
Their hearts are the ~kindest and soft
est but at the same time their natures
are as rugged and infexible as the
mighty peaks among which they live;
and I-reverence them as priests of
those. mysteries which are foreign to
the world of business and pleasure.
Their minds are far above the shop
and the ledger and if their refining
and elevating influences are felt only
by the rude cowboys and sheep
herders with whom they come in con-
tact, their lives viii not be spent in
vain. Cor. ~ Y Journal
"A seyenteen-mile levee, n much
needed Improvement, is to be built
- Al. z