Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/1479010
w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 65 Come they finally did, but only much later in her life. At age 16, on a fateful journey back to Iowa for some needed rest, she was kidnapped by a hostile Plains tribe and held captive for six months. Libby became a protect- ed, prized posses- sion of the Chief while watching less fortunate captives perish in various gruesome ways. For several years after, she was a camp cook for a wagon master, making the trek back and forth between the Rocky Mountains and the Missouri River, enduring choking dust storms and blinding blizzards time and time again. "The hardships of camp life are only understood by those who have experienced them in person," she wrote. At the age of only 19, she was promoted to "scout" on the wagon train that brought her to Montana in 1863. It's hard to imag- ine how rare it would be for a female to be a scout, let alone a 19-year-old, but such was the trust she garnered from the experiences and skills she accumulated by that young age. She lived for a time in both Virginia City and Bannack— the two rowdiest mining boomtowns in Montana. S h e was a first- hand wit- ness to the l a w l e s s n e s s there and the s u b s e q u e n t rise of the vig- ilante move- ment that fi- nally brought a semblance of peace to the area: "As if by magic, the face of society was changed within a few short weeks." All alone, she made her way as a mining camp cook, endearing herself to the miners she served. They loved her so much that they all pitched in and gave her a 100-pound sack of flour for Christmas—not a cheap item in Virginia City in those days. Twice she survived disasters and near death that left her penniless with just the clothes on her back. Once during her time in Denver, her home was swept away by a flash flood. Later, in Helena, while working as a well- paid under-nurse for a prominent physician, the great fire of January 1874 took all her belongings and money. Though in dire straits each time, the kindness of the many people she befriended along the way repaid her with a way forward, an-