![the most unknown white the most unknown white](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7370/8717301487_4a56ec1ab1_b.jpg)
I would say this one weighed well over a thousand pounds. Its coat was, as I noted, shaggy, the long hairs thick and matted.
![the most unknown white the most unknown white](https://ecdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/The-Most-Unknown-Movie-Guide-Documentary-2018-TV-PG-Science-Nature-7012513-1625662988/original-7012513-1.jpg)
In color it was a dark brown bordering on black. It stood six feet at the shoulder and was over ten feet in length. When I say it was a behemoth I do not exaggerate.
![the most unknown white the most unknown white](https://ecdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/The-Most-Unknown-Movie-Guide-Documentary-2018-TV-PG-Science-Nature-7012513-1625662988/original-7012513-2.jpg)
Most people were familiar with the vast herds that grazed the plains, but few had ever heard that prairie buffalo had shaggier cousins who preferred mountain forests to grassland. I was so intent on finding the woodpecker that I paid no attention to the woods around me, an oversight I regretted when the undergrowth abruptly crackled to the passage of an immense form, and into the open lumbered a flesh-and-blood behemoth.Īnother interesting fact Zach King had taught me, a fact few whites were aware of, was that there were two kinds of buffalo, not just one. I moved quietly, in order not to startle it into flight should I suddenly come upon it.
![the most unknown white the most unknown white](https://raed.academy/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Ramon-y-Cajal-dstNtc.jpg)
I lost sight of the woodpecker but continued toward where I had seen it last. It was the first of its kind I had seen, and I was so excited, I left my rifle behind. I spotted a woodpecker off in the woods, and taking my sketchbook, I hurried to catch it on paper before it flew off. This was impressed on me the very next day. People did not want to worry about being eaten by a grizzly whenever they stepped out their door. That is what it was all about: living safe. Man-and when I say that I mean humanity in general, men and women combined-insists on turning wilderness into farmland and filling it with towns and cities, wiping out the wild in favor of the tame and the safe. He did not want to see the mountains overrun, and I can’t say as I blame him. He grinned as he said it, but I detected an undertone of bitterness. “Leave it to white men to think that multiplying like rabbits makes them special.” “Our Manifest Destiny will not be denied.” “No barrier, not even the Rockies, can stop the tide of western expansion,” I said, parroting what I had read in many newspapers. I replied that it would not be long before whites did to the Rocky Mountains as they had done to the Appalachians in the East. He alluded to half a dozen homesteads scattered along the foothills. It was the main reason his father had decided to move deeper in. Zach mentioned that whites were coming to the Rockies in greater numbers of late. I added that in my opinion, he would make an excellent guide for others who might want to venture into the mountains. He had learned what he had to in order to survive. When I made a comment in that regard, he looked at me and said he had never thought of it that way. I surmised that he had been a keen student of nature while growing up. I was particularly interested in the habits of the animals, and in that Zach did not disappoint. Rain was a relative rarity except in the summer when fierce thunderstorms broke out. And a lot of the water that did flow came from runoff from the snow high up. I learned, for instance, that many of the streams only flowed during the winter and spring, that in the summer much that was green became parched and brown. Zach filled my head with facts about the land and the wildlife. Except for the intrepid trappers of a generation ago, few white men had ever penetrated this far in among the towering peaks. I came to appreciate why much of the Rockies were unexplored. And white men don’t go anywhere without their bedroll and supplies.” “No, I think it was a white man, but then that doesn’t explain the bedroll and the packs.” They use their own or ride bareback.” He chewed some more. “Well, we know it wasn’t an Indian,” Zach said with his mouth full, and lustily chewing. “So the Bents could have sold or traded it to practically anyone?” “They have stock for trade and sale, and sometimes they rent horses out for short spells.” Between them, they could hold over three hundred horses, mules and oxen. “You are certain? Who did it belong to?” As I recalled, the fort had two large inside corrals, one at the north end of the post and the other on the west side. “I’ve seen that sorrel before,” Zach said, and tore off a strip of venison with his teeth. I glanced at where the animals were picketed. “Oh.” The truth was, in my delirium I had forgotten about it. The one I have been leading around the past couple of days.” There are moments when I wonder if I have a brain.