Distinctly Montana Magazine

63 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 40 Spanish Peak Drive Four Corners Bozeman 406.582.8700 blacktimberfurniture.com sales@blacktimberfurniture.com Reclaim Your Bedroom Space With Our Locally Hand-crafted Custom Murphy Bed Designed and Hand-crafted in the Gallatin Valley by Todd Fullerton and his team for your Montana lifestyle. BEST FURNITURE STORE BEST CUSTOM FURNITURE IN MONTANA Bridger, challenges Chittenden's "authority to either con- firm or contradict La Barge's statement," given the absence of direct references to Bridger in early accounts of this saga. The vigil observed by these men lasted from four to six days. When their resolve broke, Fitzgerald was, by all indi- cations, the first to crack. At that time, Glass' throat injury made speech impossible, but his hearing was unimpaired, and he later told Yount about arguments that Fitzger- ald used in persuading his accomplice to abandon Glass. When they finally did so, they took virtually all of the in- jured man's possessions. Theft of Glass' rifle was a partic- ularly egregious offense, one that breathed unquenchable fire and renewed purpose back into the dying man. Prior to their departure, Glass' attendants placed his lit- ter next to the spring by which they were encamped. From that position, Glass could extend his arm and obtain water or buffalo berries, which dangled from overhanging bush- es. To swallow them, however, he had to crush the berries to a pulp and further soften them with water. Several days later, manna assumed the form of a rat- tlesnake that Glass noticed after waking from a nap. The rattler's immobility and bloated condition indicated that it was digesting a recently consumed animal or bird, which gave Glass the opportunity to safely kill it with a sharp stone. Despite the difficulty of laboriously shredding and swallowing its raw flesh, the snake's trunk provided the first substantive food that Glass had eaten in many days. The sustenance afforded by that reptile gave him enough strength to crawl but not to walk. And, so, the arduous pur- suit of his deserters began. Without his rifle, Glass had to fully utilize every avail- able food resource. Yount states that Hugh excavated "nourishing roots, [which] he had learned to discriminate." This reference may signify consumption of prairie turnips (Psoralea esculenta). Glass also employed the Plains Indian practice of cracking open the long bones of bison carcasses and scraping out the calorie-rich marrow, to which he add- ed buffalo berries. Glass eventually struck the proverbial mother lode when he saw several wolves kill a young buffalo calf nearby. Ac- cording to Cooke, Hugh waited until they devoured about half of the carcass, after which he appropriated the remain- der. For someone who had lost as much blood as Old Glass, the greatest need was food capable of replenishing it. "Drip- ping with gore, the chunks he ripped from the young buf- falo" were, as Myers Myers observed, "just behind a blood transfusion in the immediacy with which they joined forces with his system. With his arteries flush for the first time since his terrible encounter, he was now on the way to rising from all fours." TM

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