The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-04-06

Last of Fremont's Pathfinders. and Chief
eff tho Snakes.
and Chief

2 the way, and came back the follow
ing year. Then he ranged the west
from the DdkOtas to the south, untll
the year 1913. when Fremont under
the guide Of Kit Carson. made the
third of his exploring expeditions, the
most eventful one in that il resulted
in the opening Of California to Amer
lean rule. At a distance Buckskin Joe
heard of the expedition. He hurried
to Missouri, thinking to enlist as a
guide, and found that the Fremont
party had gone on. Determined to foi-
low, he joined a party Of settlers under
I the command of one Lewis, acting as
guide and hunter. They crossed the
Sierra In the summer Of 1874. SIX
months after Fremont made his Ia
nous winter passage of the snowy
Sierra, and met a Fremont scouting
party on the san Joaquin. There BUCK
skin Joe enlisted as a scout.
Major Buchanan Of Fremonts eX-
/ petition, who is now living at me
! home, described his first meeting with
! Buckskin Joe as follows:
He came into camp one morning
| dressed all in buCkskins, a Kentucky
rifle over his shoulder. and asked 70
be a hunter for the expedition. He was
a wiry, stout little man, who never
tired and was afraid Of nothing. he
scrambled around horses like a monkey,
mounting while the horse was at 1ull
gallon. and ne knew every Indian trick
and dodge. He would sneak through
/ the underbrush ike a weasel until ne
got a chance for a shot, and he never
missed. He is absolutely the best shot
that ever saw, and is afraid of MOTH
ing. He did great service as a scout
and sharpshoOter, and used TO keep Us
in fresh meat I saw great deal OF
him through the war. He was more OF
an Indian than a white man.
Then followed the attack of Castro
on the little band Of revolutionists,
their rescue by Fremont and the out
break of the Mexican war in CalnOr-
MIA At this point he enlisted regu-
larry as a scout, and was close to Ere
mont through all the operations on
California soil. Experienced with the
Indians as he was, and already CHER
of the Snakes, he kept his eye on the
Mexican irregulars. In the course OF
this campaign he received his hrst
wound at the action that he calls the
battle Of NatiVidad. No action OF that
name appears in the history Of Cali
fornia, and be is doubtless giving his
own name 10 one Of FTemOnts fights.
Taken out of the vernacular, his story
of the wound is something like this:
Fremont sent me ahead to scout l
was on my horse, the one that carried
me over the plains. I came on them all
OF a sudden, and started back. Ny horse
was better than theirs. but they all
took after me. They began shooting
guns and arrows. I slid down the side
of the horse away from them and rode
that way, lodging from side to side L
wondered then why they didn't hit me
or hit the horse. anyway. After the
war General Castro told me why. He
said he called out TO kill the man, but
not shoot the horse, because he was a
good one, and they needed horses. They
got him. though. just as I was getting
into camp. Down he tUmbled, and I
started to sneak through the bushes
and they clipped me in the ankle. Our
men came out and drove them back"
When the old days began 10 pass they
left Buckslin JOe-passed him by; a
remnant Of an older age. All his life he
hated towns. He was a man of the
woods. He has never been in San Fran
cisco since it ceased to be Yerba Buena.
To the new conditions he could not
adapt himself In the seventies, already
an old man. he settled down on the