Theodore Winthrop

“ There are two grigs to every blade of grass from Echo Cailon to the South Pass, and yet every one sings and skips, as gay as if merriment would make the desert a meadow,
“You are astir early after the ball, Jake,” said I.
“Ef I wait till the gals in the train begins to polky round, I shan’t git my men away nayry time. They olluz burr to gals, like all young fellers. We’ll haul off jest as soon as you’re ready.” ”

“ Death would have chosen such a steed for a gallop on one of death’s errands.
Death would have commissioned such a rider to bear a sentence of death. A tall, gaunt man, with the loose, long frame of a pioneer. ”

“ Box Elder is the northernmost Mormon settlement, or was, in those days.
“I’ll never say another word agin the Mormon religion, Jake,” Armstrong went on. “They treated me like a brother to Box Elder. They outfitted me with a pistol, and this ere horse. They said he’d come in from a train what the Indians had cut off, and was a terrible one to go. He is; and I believe he knows what he’s goan for. I’ve ben night and day ridin’ on them murderers’ trail. Now, men, give me time to think. Bill’s murderers ain’t at Bridger. ”

“ Bill, he never couldn’t think wrong of nobody. Bill, he said, ‘No. Looks was nothin’,’ he said, ‘ and we’d jine the fellers.’ So we did, and rode together all day, and camped together on a branch we cum to. I reckon we talked too much about the cattle we was goan to buy, and I suppose ther’ ain’t many on the Pacific side that ain’t heard of the Armstrongs. They allowed we had money, — them murderers did. ”

“ He was impatient of this dalliance.
“We were coming down from the Umpqua, my brother and I,” says Armstrong, “goan across to the States, to drive out cattle next summer. We was a little late one morning, along of our horses havin’ strayed off from camp, and that was how we met them men. ”