JOE MEEK BECOMES A MOUNTAIN MAN

He did learned that life in the Far West might not be the lark he'd expected. They hadn't left civilization yet and already he was sleeping out of doors, cold Missouri rain or no. Every day Joe was roused from a soggy slumber at four o'clock in the morning to eat a quick breakfast he'd had to concoct himself. After he'd choked it down it was time to start a grueling day of taming horses and mules.

The word "Cowboy" hadn't been thought up yet, at least not in those words. If it had, Joe Meek would have been just that, a cowboy, for the time being. Eventually he did bring his bucking, jumping, and twisting mule under control. Now there was the trick of loading his pack animals to suite the boss. Sublette insisted the only way to pack a mule was the right way--his way. Whoa to the man whose mule developed saddle sores. Before he'd gotten his three mules packed the right way, Meek had been bitten, trampled, and trod as well as bruised and bloodied.

On March 17, of 1829 Sublette's company was considered ready to move out. At last, Joe Meek was headed west.

To find out more about Joe Meek, and other Mountain Men, on the Internet see:

End of the Oregon Trail http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/piofa... This is a wonderful site that gives one of the most complete accounts of the life of Joe Meek on the Internet.

Jim Bridger http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/HNS/Mt... This site gives the history of Mountain Man Jim Bridger as well as links to Jedediah Smith, General Ashley, South Pass, and Fort Bridger.

Don't Forget to Visit Our SUITE 101 UNIVERSITY: your place for online learning! A new course has been added and is now in progress: THE GREAT AMERICAN WEST, 1861 to 1876, written and instructed by Mary Trotter Kion. http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17161...

The major printed sources for this article are:

Joe Meek: The Merry Mountain Man by Stanley Vestal Published by University of Nebraska Press/Lincoln and London, 1952.

A Life Wild and Perilous by Robert M. Utley Published by Henry Holt and Company/New York, 1997

THE WILD WILD WEST HAS ARRIVED AT SUITE 101 UNIVERSITY

To get in on the action check out these two courses: THE GREAT AMERICAN WEST, 1861 to 1876, http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17161...

BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN, 1872 to 1876 http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17638...

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