Mountain man

When the boy was about 14 years of age, the family moved once more into the dim West, settling at the place now known as Louisville in Kentucky.

WILLIAM'S ELDER BROTHER, GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, HAD PRECEDED THE OTHERS AND HAD BUILT THE FIRST FORTIFICATION AGAINST THE INDIANS AT THE FALLS OF THE OHIO, AROUND WHICH WERE CLUSTERED A FEW OF THE RUDE DWELLINGS OF THE FRONTIERSMEN.

AT THIS PLACE, AMIDST THE CRUDEST CONDITIONS OF THE KENTUCKY BORDER, THE LAD GREW TO MATURITY.

That was not an orderly life, it was rather a continuing state of suspense, demanding of those who shared in it constant hardihood and fortitude.

Jim Bridger and Tom Fitzpatrick rode north into Blackfoot country with 60 men, and for once, Blackfoot warriors were not the immediate problem.

Trappers of the rival American Fur Company followed their every move.

Every place Bridger trapped, the American Fur Company's men, probably 60 in number, trapped also.

Two brigades of trappers crowded into beaver fields only big enough for one.

[laughs]

I mean, even Jeremiah Johnson's film on the mountain men had a scene, and I think Robert Redford always regretted this, but it had a scene where wolves attack his character, Jeremiah Johnson, in the film, and that film, of course, was only made about 15 years before Dances With Wolves.

But the wolf character, whose name is Two Socks because he has two white front paws, is given a major role, and it's a portrayal of a wolf that's not only not a bloodthirsty monster, but he's playful, and he not only endears himself to the Kevin Costner character, who is a former Union soldier sent out to a post in the West.

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