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On his arrival home from school the boy usually found himself submerged in a stream of activity. It was the busiest time of the day for his parents, so he had only fleeting contacts with them. Men were returning from lining up in the wash - room, tramping from up and down stairs, changing from work clothes, changing for the evening meal or to make a round of the saloons with their poker tables, twenty-one games and general whoop - la. He had a small room, near his parents in the first unit of the hotel, but lack of rooms for customers had made it necessary to demote him to a muslin room in the attic, often referred to as the "Bull Pen". Here, he had held forth until the final west annex was added, when a regular room on the ground floor was assigned to him. In this environment, with no other youngsters around, he developed an aptitude for making friends with the adults,- the men. Frequently he would spend time in the lobby, where a dozen or more men might be sitting around the big stove telling tall tales. It was an unusually large cast iron stove, long enough to handle wood three to four feet long, and when well stoked, its heat would out - do some of the stories bandied about. At times, a miner might be casually wrestling with a shoe last, pounding a flew rows of hob nails into his boots. Or a teamster might be braiding a new popper onto his whip scraping down a, new whip stock for proper "heft". Some might be reading the three - day old newspapers; but the discussions went on.
Here, one not only met characters of all sorts, but heard story's (fact or fiction) about dozens of other characters roaming the woods. Some were reputed to have been "bad men", who had been wanted in other distant camps, but were now hiding out in this remote area, where they were unlikely to be caught up with. Many of them came to town only occasionally, bought up a grub stake, went on the town for a binge, and then faded back into the wilds again with their groceries and a head - ache. Men arriving in town from the hills frequently came in carrying six - guns on their hips, but, unlike men in western towns as depicted in the movies, they usually checked their guns in to the bar - tender of the first saloon they visited. It was not unusual for a bar tender to have five or six guns and holsters lined up, out of sight on a shelf, behind the front bar. This is not to say that the town was immune to fights and occasional gun play.
Among the mysterious personages the name "Brown", whether a true name or an alias, seemed to occur most often. "Anarchist" Brown was a dour personality with a ragged red - gray vandyke beard, who neither had a friend nor apparently wanted one. In any conversation he spoke only cynically or derisively on any subject. But he had an amusing side. He could play a tin fife with considerable skill and dexterity; and he could imitate dog sounds, like a ventriloquist, until he had the canine population in a tizzy of confusion. Perhaps the label "anarchist" was a bit severe. "Snow-shoe" Brown was not in town frequently, and his back ground seemed a bit vague. His nick-name was derived from the fact that, in winter overland travel, he was said to be the fastest man on skis in the country. Skis were then spoken of as "snow shoes" and snow shoes were usually referred to as "webs". "Yellowstone" Brown, likewise, was something of a phantom in his appearances and disappearances. No one even seemed to know the origin of the name "Yellowstone" as applied to him. Any of these "Browns" could have been "bad men" trying to get lost. But "Big - neck" Brown had nothing to hide, rather, something he could not conceal. The unfortunate fellow had a goitre so large that his head virtually merged with his shoulders. And, from trying to look up or down, or to either side, without turning his head,- which he could not do-, his eyes fairly popped from their sockets. Even more pathetic was the, case of "Ed" Brown, a typical sour dough prospector, discovered a little "lead" or vein, and determined that he could follow it under the mountain and uncover a lode. So he started a tunnel into the mountain, and built a cabin in a little clearing nearby. In the clearing he kept a cow and harvested enough wild hay to feed the critter. In good seasons he raised quantities of turnips and rutabagas for himself and, as he said "roots for Bossie". In the winter time he would set out a trap line to catch muskrat, mink, martin and ermine. Sale of the furs furnished the cash for his food and dynamite. In his spare time he worked in his tunnel alone, digging, driving, inch by inch, foot by foot. After some thirty-five years of this, they had "to take him away to the asylum at Orofino.
Fur trapping was not an overly important side industry in the forests of Idaho /County., but the most famous exponent of that trade was "Trapper Joe" Schworer. In the winter time he maintained long trap lines in the remote areas north of Elk City, from Meadow Creek on north to the Selway. He had established log and brush huts at intervals of about a days travel along these lines, and stocked them with provisions before the snows came. These shacks, sometimes covered with several feet of snow, were barely large enough for the trapper to crawl into, to get at some food and to sleep. His appearance on returning to town after a whole winter of living alone in the forest under such conditions defies description. He would be loaded down, fore and aft with dozens of packets of hides, and furs, which, though not smelling too sweet, were worth perhaps several hundred dollars. Of course there could be no bathing living in such circumstances, and Trapper Joe didn't even bother to wash his hands. He was a big man, but looked ever. larger because of several layers of clothing under the outer garments. He had a loud, resonant voice and spoke very brokenly with a decided German accent. But outside of a big nose and shaggy eyebrows, no one really knew what Trapper Joe looked like. He had never been known to have a beard or hair trim and the bushy, faded, dirty, red - yellow beard covered his face and chest half way to his belt, and almost as far on each cheek. |
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