See how Cooke's careful and elaborately described treatment of a snake-bitten horse, back in July 1843, gets worked into the fictionalized dialogue between the Captain and his "Imaginary Friend" in the entry for October 7, 1843:
July 10
"... Just as I arrived on the Camp ground this evening a rattle snake struck a valuable led horse of mine in the rim of the nostril; I immediately scarified it deeply with my penknife, and had it copiously washed until—fifteen minutes after—the hospital wagon arrived, and I procured some ammonia, which I applied until the skin came off (which it soon did). After swelling for twenty minutes, it is getting well."
(Cooke's 1843 journal)
October 7
... After supper—The
Hunter in the mouth of his tent reclines, with a pipe, upon a glossy bearskin;—before him, a desert expanse of grass and river;—his
attention is apparently divided between the moon, suspended over the
western hills; the flickering blaze of a small fire, and the curling
smoke which he deliberately exhales. His friend stirs a toddy, reading
with difficulty a crabbed manuscript.
Loquitur. "When I saw you yesterday, beside your usual duties, acting as guide, surgeon,—(for you have effectually cured the snake-bitten horse)—as hunter, or as butcher"—
"Say commissary!"
"I conceived hopes of you, that the poetic spirit was layed; and
when at supper to-night you ate so heartily of the elk-steak, I little
thought you had been indulging again in such pathetic"—
"Pshaw! it serves for a
gilding to Life's bitter pill! The delicious supper should have mended
your humour: for I stake my reputation on it— as 'guide, surgeon and
hunter'"—
Imaginary Friend. "And butcher"—
—"That the flesh,
cooked, as it was, with a little pork, cannot be distinguished from that
of the fattest buffalo cow that ever surrendered tongue and
marrow-bones to hungry hunter."
("Scenes Beyond the Western Border," January 1852) and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army
Wonderful!
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