Silver-Knife; Or The Hunters Of The Rocky Mountains (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

Excerpt from Silver-Knife, or the Hunters of the Rocky Mountains: An Autobiography
After I had engaged to produce the following pages for the publishers, I was somewhat at a loss for materiel. I had never travelled much in the West, and had seen but a very small portion of that country where I wished to lay the scenes of the work I contemplated preparing. I mentioned this fact to a friend.
"I think I can assist you," he said. "I have no materiel of my own, although I have travelled in the Indian country. We got snagged, steaming down the Missouri, and I lost all my papers; but I know a person who has a trunk full of the very matter you need. He is rather an eccentric individual, and whether he can be induced to part with his literary treasures, I cannot say. No harm can be done, however, by asking him, and I will make the experiment."
I thanked my friend, and assured him ho could do me no greater favor.
The very next day, while, with pen in hand, I sat puzzling my brains, my door was opened, and a voluminous packet was laid on my table by a "gentleman from Africa." It proved to contain the papers of which my friend had spoken, and was accompanied by a note, although the writer was an utter stranger to me:
"Dear Sir: Mr. L. has informed me of the embarrassment under, which you labor in preparing a work representing life in the far West Do not write fiction, when facts are so abundant and thrilling. Life on the prairies is so varied, so full of adventure, so redolent of danger, and, I may add, so startling, that fiction must necessarily fall short of reality. I speak from experience.
"I have been often importuned for the materiel which I now intrust to you; but have steadily refused to let it go out of my possession. I part with it on the following conditions:
All matters pertaining to my private personal history, you shall let alone. I do not wish to go before the public as a hero. I never liked notoriety. Whatever relates to the geography and history of the country, together with the habits, manners and customs, of the different tribes, and my adventures with them, arc yours. I will not stop to assure you they are facts, because I never deal in fictions.
"When you have gleaned what you wish from the mass of papers you will receive with this note, return them to me.