Earlier in the trip, I was even elected as one of three to constitute a sort of ad hoc "scientific corps" to collect relevant data that might one day serve an actual, practicing scientist. Lastly, and not inconsequentially, I have stood over six feet since my 16th birthday and I grew that tall with a rifle in my hands for the better part of my boyhood. For these reasons, I can only guess, I conveyed the impression of one—if not certifiably capable of leading—then at least one in a prominent enough position to give it his all.

[He perhaps laughs a little.]

To be honest, Dear Reader, the silliest things will grant a man his moment to lead. I grew up in a large family filled with, shall we say, effusive types. As such, I had a gift for gesturing that served me brilliantly on the lecture tour, but also allowed me to communicate with the Sioux effectively. The language that my body conveyed carried over despite all difference in our tongues. Surely, the tribes had interpreters—the half-breed sons of trappers usually—hired for their ability to speak the White man's language, but I could carry on a conversation with anything that moved!

This was the migratory season, so the Indians were on the move just as much as we; at each turn where we encountered them, I stood the same exact ground: I encouraged commerce and allowed for mingling but not amongst the wagons and not with any arms present besides those of their warriors and those of our guards, who stood about the edge. I held firm to these rules I had improvised no matter where we were and no matter what the tribe; they served us well throughout my tenure as leader.

Yet, even as I stood guard during any interactions, I could gesture! I apparently had a gift for holding a loaded rifle in a friendly fashion.

Furthermore, I had grown up in a large family and I knew how to placate a middle-aged widow much as I knew how to mind a child of almost any age. I was a boy, but I could act the part of a man; I learned the gumption required to rise to an occasion and the more I stood my ground thusly, the more acreage availed itself to me. Such was my progress West.

[He pauses, allowing his smile to slink away.]

Why do I tell you all of this, Dear Reader? Why at this point in my tale? Perhaps you see into the future of this story. Perhaps you sense a well-mounted self-defense, but no. No, that is not it at all. Would that it were it! Would that I were able to simply disabuse you, Dear Reader, of these notions that hang like the winter storms that wreath the Sierra Nevadas, the white that is "the most meaning symbol of the Christian's Deity; and yet.the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind"—as one Yankee novelist put it a few years back—the white that hangs like the salvation that is Death.

Do not wonder why the endless ground of the Great Salt Desert is colored that same ghastly lack of hue.

Furthermore, why do I trouble myself to present the qualities no man can claim to be his own, qualities that must be assigned by the gratitude of others? Through election, through trial, through anecdotes I must direct toward some objective I trust, Dear Reader, you suspect.