Sublime

Late in the month Mugs Stump crossed paths with Waterman on the upper Ruth Glacier. Stump, an alpinist of world renown who died on Denali in 1992, had just completed a difficult new route on a nearby peak, the Mooses Tooth.

Although his health was failing, Catlin yearned to be far away in nature, to capture rawer and more real depictions of humanity. He packed a gun, several canvases, a few paintbrushes, and headed west. Catlin would spend the next six years traveling thousands of miles throughout the Great Plains, covering more distance than Lewis and Clark to docume

the historic hamlet of Lincoln, where rows of lovely old territorial buildings along a narrow pastoral valley drew tourists in search of the Billy the Kid legend.

The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.