JIM BRIDGER

Thundering along neck and neck with the Hickok story is this Garst companion piece (another publisher) about Wyoming's and the surrounding territory's mountain man, Jim Bridger. Bridger's dates are 1804 to 1881 which makes him a little older than Hickok, and unlike Hickok's, his activities lay primarily in scouting and building. An illiterate, Bridger left his St. Louis home in early youth. Fascinated by the Indians, he got to know them, became an army scout, was the first to explore Yellowstone geyser land, became a friend of Kit Carson's, married a Flathead squaw, and founded Fort Bridger in Wyoming.