Idaho State Journal du lieu suivant : Pocatello, Idaho • Page 15

IDAHO STATE JOURNAL Friday, Nov. 1, 1963-3 Bigfoot's Career Career Started Over Insult second EDITOR'S in NOTE: This is the his moves with military series of articles striking ail emigrant train in the on outlaws of the old west, pre- Burnt River pared by members of the Ran. the next day butchering traveiers country one day, and County Historical Sociely 75 miles eastward, killing a miner nock as part of the Territorial Cen- on the outskirts of Silver tennial oliservance. This feature the City is on Bigfoot, perhaps Idaho's southward to rob the then Salt following day, sweeping most famous outlaw of 100 City. to Fort Boise Lake stagecoach and years ago.

kill the passengers, In By the NORA fnll of ANN HARRIMAN freighters, stagecoach drivers and Lawmen, emigrants, miners, notorious the began the highwaymen set out to rid the 1965 whose nickname career "Bigfoot" man sent country of this demon and collect shivers the reward on his scalp and feet. up the spines of thousands of engrants passing through One day a party of horsemen the narrow canyons between sit. caught Bigfuot alone on an open Ver City and Fort Boise, prairie and tried to run him down. For three The chase went on for 20 miles called Chief years with Bigfout well ahead of his Starr Wilkinson, Nam (big) pursuers. Then, seeming to (foot) tire of renegade by the band, members Bigfoot of his the game, the giant escaped by the white people, committed dep- a and by swimming river.

redations in this section of the The end came in July, 16G8. country. Ranging as far wesl John W. Wheeler, a notorious the Grande Ronde Valley in Ore. highwayman, had been following gon and as far east as the hend- Bigfoot's trail all day and now waters of the Owyhee and Weiser as the sun sank in the West, he rivers in Idaho.

Bigfoot haunted approached Massacre Mendows, a the wagon trails, stealing horses, narrow defile halfway between murdering, and plundering. Silver City and Fort Boise that was one of Bigfoot's favorite His name became legend; his haunts, and realized description every "six that Rigfoot was on lip; meant to attack font eight and one-halt inches it a 3.5 stagecoach tall, three hundred pounds; feet, Iliding passed in the through rocky cunyon, the seventeen and onc-half inches! horrified to see craigs, Wheeler was a lone emilong, six inches wide; accompan- grant hurrying down the road in led renegade by a small band of mounted pursuit Shoshones; of AL runaway team of always on horses, and across the foot; can run faster than a horse three feathered, Indians canyon and cover 30 to 80 miles a day; painted the citizens of Fort Boise will racing to intercept lbe approaching stagecoach. Two of the Inpay one thousand dollars for his dians were of medium scalp and feet." but the leader. stature, After murders on the Sauke Bigfoot! was giant River, Bigfoot made his way to As Wheeler the Boise Valley where he met watched, the emi. the French trader and aware named Anderson, suddenly Joe and his trapper, band of his predicament, dived of Lewis, Indians.

renegade been under a rock ledge. Wheeler Joe had with ed one openthe parly of redmen who had The killing the fire, of Indians. mussacred Doctor Whitman and ran back the second Indian whirled and many others nIcar Fort Walla way he had come. Walla in 1947. thicket, The secreted himself in a Bigfoot stagecoach passed, The renegade Indians welcom- and Bigfoot sought ed Bigfoot, and with the first camouflaging himself with escape by movements along the trail in the brush and crawling sageaway.

springtime the white plundering began. Wheeler began shouting insults, emigrant night train, Bigfoot attacking recogniz-1 an ending with: "You cowardly niged cattle belonging to the parents ger, no more women's you'll take of woman ho loved, but who scalps!" had rejected birn, known only as feet. Infurialed, Wheeler Bigfoot Icaped to his lle gave the signal and Bigfoot rose. Both Inen the alinck fired. staggered, and fired Mury.

Bigfout rode ceased, dawn to The the next day again. Wheeler's second bulict trail to his wagon sent the giant reeling. get girt. dropped his drew Bigfoot gun, his knife, Mary hacked away in horror, and started running toward the That night Bigfoot told Joe: "She highwayman. Wheeler kept shoothates murdered, me! I and fought she for her, stole, ping.

hates me. She At Inst Bigfoot fell, his powerful called. me a bigfooted nigger!" body ridiled by sixteen bullets. That night horror visited the Wheeler approached, and wagon train. Guns barked, shrieks cried Bigfoot out, "Don't shoot me again.

ended in moans, scalps were tak- You have killed en among them Mary's. Afraid of trickery, Wheeier Leading the blood-crazed band maintained a safe distance. into the Burnt River country, Bigfoot raised his head. "Give Bigfoot attacked and murdered me the Scott family. One attack fol- Wheeler hesitated.

The Indian's lowed another. Miners were mur- left nrin had been shattered, but tiered on the road between Silver the right arin City and Fort Boise, stagecoaches "Wait'll I hreak your other WAS unhurt. were robbed and passengers kill- "Do it quick," "I am going blind," Bigfoot urged. Bigfoot's lust could not be Wheeler fired and the job was sated. He took an Indian bride, done.

but he did not give up his hatred. "Now give me water and let me In the summer of 1887 he killed die," Bigfoot said. an Army officer and his child, Wheeler called to the taking the hysterical mother and and then brought a bottle of emigrant, wife captive. A few days later, key from his saddle bags. realizing that she was a burden, Bigfoot drank eagerly, and then ho turned her over to the squaws, lay back.

"Do I look like who killed her. ger?" he asked. niga Posses were organized and the "Just your kinky hair," Wheelcitizens at Fort Boise increased er answered, the reward for Bigfoot's scalp Bigfont soil, "I am Cherokee. and feet, Don't scalp me, or take my feet Ono night a posse found the to Fort Boise, When I go to the renegade's encampment and a Happy Himaling Grounds battle was fought. Bigfoot Drag my body to the, river, furious escaped, but later learned that his among the willows, put my gun wife had been killed and his small by my side, pile rocks over con Insane taken captive.

so my, body, won't be found. meja Do for revenge, he planned this, and I. will die satisfidd." Bigfoot lay back. He said, "When I was a young boy, my white father was hanged by the Cherokee Nation for murder. They never forgot.

I WAS too big to play with the other children. They made fun of me and called me I hated that name, I burt them when they taunted me. My mother WAS as hamed of me. She said 1 would be hanged, too. People feared me.

When I was 15, I joined a wagon train and came West. Mary loved me. I loved her. I have never loved another worman, Then he came, He was an artist. He Mary hate me, He said I was al nigger." Wheeler shook his head.

"It is riot the color of the skin that counts. It's a man's thoughts." Bigfoot said, "It is getting dark." He jerked spasmotically, and his eyes opened wide. "Look! Look!" he cried. "The soldiers are afler me! I must go, quick!" He struggled, fell back, and lay still. Wheeler rose and.

looked down at the lifeless body. "He was a courageous J020. Life was bad for him." Then he turned to we bury him?" They used their horses and Inr. diets to drug the body to the riv. er.

Scooping a shallow grave in A thicket, they lowered the body. Wheeler said, "1 will break his rifle so it can do no more harm." They lay the broken gun beside the still figure. and covered the magnificent badly with Anderson remembered a prayer, Wheeler said; "I will never tell." "I have forgotten everything," Anderson said. "Everything, but the Over-Educated Profs Ribbed In Crews Book THE POOH PERPLEX. By Fredorick C.

Crews. Dutton. $2.95. Crows flings gleefully a whole stack of gooey pies into the foollsh faces of the literary scholars. Ilis little opus pretends to be Here's a Test: Can You Keep Mind Off Self? SION.

By Mark or nay. Houghton Mifflin. $3.5. The uses of this small book are two-fold: you can get samel. chuckles out of it in the read- I ing, and then you can make conversation about it in the next cocktail hour, The author pretends to be a journalist describing the learned investigations of a Dr.

Herschel McLandress. But "Epernay" has been identified as the Harvlard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who has held a nomber of important assignments in the Kennedy administration, The imaginary Dr. McLandress has invented an index to measuro the average length of time a subject's attention can be. diverted from his own personality. If he is self-centered, he has a low coefficient of a few minutes.

There is a lot of fun in readling off the coefficients of many celebrities in dozens of fields of endeavor (the Rev. Martin. Luther King, 4 hours; Richard, M. Dixon, 3 seconds; and Prof. Galbraith himself sets a Low among government people at 1 minute, 15 seconds).

Equally amusing is McLandress' formula for measuring status in what he calls the Amican Sociometric Peerage, With mock academic jargon, he sets up Maximum Prestige Horizons for various occupations and then rates some well-known individuals within these classifications. For good measure the learned doctor sets up 'u consulting center to provide pat, double-talk answers on international ques. for the use of big business executives participatingfor prestige purposes in campus seminars on deep-dish problems. These and other gambits provide the author with broadgauge opportunities for satire. But he also has a deft way of slipping in some more subtle, sly digs.

And don't overlook the fact that in using this mock-aca-1 demic format he has concocted pretty devastating burlesque of the so-called behavioral ences. 1 Miles At Smith! THE MeLANDRESS DIMEN- A freshman dents in in tion of one case, a classroom examining casebook for stu-Inuts in devastatingly exact deEnglish Lit. It is pre- tail. An English prof himself, the form of a coilec- the author sees his colleagues in critical essays-and in the round and as squares, a verbatim report of sketching them in a brilliant bit lecture -solemnly of minicry and nonsense, the "real" meaning Miles A. Smith cf A.

A. Milne's Pooh stories. Each of the supposed scholars is a specialist of some sort--and therein lies the spool. One arrogant psycho critic finds esoteric personality symbols. A left wing scholar declares the whole affair is fiction neatly concealing a series of proletarian fables.

Another is an effete esthete, confused by it all, One eggdome complexes, and 1 befuddled German Freudian psychoanatyes the author and hauls up a bucketful of slop, while a pious old character puts religious labels on all the charncters and classifies the stories as a document in the Christian-Humanist I tradition, The one who gives lecture is a slangy, palsywalsy, rah-rah academic type -and at the other end of the scale is a word-juggler so immersed in terminology that he forgets what he is writing about. And 50 on. While this ivy-covered circus is in action, Crews manages to slip in some not-sa-sly, broad digs at scholarly envy, back-1 biting and narcissism. It is An amazing performance, for Crews convincingly apes a wide range of academic Paid Warrior Hero of Book THE MERCENARY. By Chartos Durbin.

Houghton Mifflin. $5. The hero of this novel was an. actual figure of history--a very turbulent period of history. In the curly years of the 16th Century the lund now called Italy 3.5 jungle of feuding little city-states.

Beside these bloody battles there were constant intramural fights for power, with brothers, cousins and uncles slaughtering each other. Gianpaolo Bagliuni was a ber of the ruling house of the hill town of Perugia, and as experienced his own share such family butchery and double-crossBut he also was one of the' condottieri the hired captains who, with their retainers, fought other people's battles for pay, in the midst of shifting alliances, cynical betrayals and crude torture. Durbin presents such historical figures as Rodlerigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI) and his unlucky son Cesare; Guiliano della Rovere (Pope Julius ID, Giovanni di Medici (Popc Leo X) and a slippery Jittle politician named Machsci-liavelli. Miles' A. Smith Fiction Best Sellers ivin I OWE RUSSIA $1,200, Hope MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, Fisherman THE GROUP, McCarthy THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN, West CARAVANS, Michener CITY OF NIGHT, Rechy ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, Fleming NONFICTION JFK THE MAN AND THE MYTH, Lasky THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATII, Mitford THE FIRE NEXT TIME, Bald- 3 Collector's 1 Item Handmade by Fontori Collectors with an eye for the best always choose authentic handmade glassware by Fenton, They get such a limitless choice of styles, colors, and and each one is delightfully unique i See chem for yourself at Leeann's Bannock Hotel Arcade.