He cried out in French that he was ready, and at that moment they both started their horses at full speed toward each other.  When within thirty yards, Shewman fired, and at the crack of his gun, Jake Harrington clapped his hands and shouted:  “Good! good!  Uncle Kit is safe.”

We could not see any sign of his being hit, and when a few yards nearer each other, Uncle Kit fired, and Shewman fell to the ground mortally wounded, the bullet passing through his body just above the heart.

Shewman lived until Uncle Kit got to him, then he acknowledged that it was all his own fault, and that it was good enough for him.

As soon as the fight was ended, Jake Harrington and I ran into camp to notify the rest of our crowd, thinking that we would have to fight the entire Canadian outfit of trappers, but we found it quite different, for after the fight they were more friendly toward us than before.  We stayed two days and helped to bury Shewman.

This was the first white man that I had ever seen buried in the Rocky Mountains.

We rolled him up in a blanket, laid him in the grave and covered him with dirt.  The funeral being over, our party started for Bent’s Fort.

The third day’s travel brought us to Sweetwater, where we came to the top of a hill, from which we could overlook the entire valley, which was covered with wagons and tents.  This was a large train of emigrants from various portions of the East who had started the year before and had wintered on Platte river, the edge of settlement, and when spring opened they had resumed their journey.

After supper that evening, Uncle Kit suggested that we visit the emigrant camp and see the ladies, which did not altogether meet with my approval, but rather than be called bashful, I went along with the crowd.  I was now twenty-one years of age, and this was the first time I had got sight of a white woman since I was fifteen, this now being the year of 1853.

I had been out in the mountains a long time, and had not had my hair cut during that time, but took excellent care of it.  I always kept it rolled up in a piece of buckskin, and when unrolled it would hang down to my waist.

There was a number of young ladies in the train, and they were not long in learning that I was the most bashful person in the crowd, and they commenced trying to interest me in conversation.  At that time I only owned two horses, and would have given them both, as free as the water that runs in the brook, if I could only have been away from there at that moment.  Seeing that I had long hair, each of them wanted a lock.  By this time I had managed to muster courage enough to begin to talk to them.

I told them that if they would sing a song, they might have a lock of my hair.

A little, fat Missouri girl, spoke up and said:  “Will you let any one that sings have a lock of your hair?”

I assured her that I would.