Colter Was A Man

I always enjoy reading the old story of John Colter who was with Lewis and Clark. Later he went to the Three Forks area of Montana three times for beaver pelts and adventure. Once he was caught by the Blackfeet, stripped naked and asked if he could run fast. Thinking quickly, he said "no." They gave him a two hundred yard head start and took out after him. He would die in horrible pain. But Colter was tall, lean and fast and headed for the Madison River through prickly pear. Soon he glanced back to see only one brave behind him. Colter quickly turned, wrestled the spear from the man and killed him. He then jumped into the Madison and swam beneath a log jam put his face between two logs to breath. When dark came he floated down stream for some distance then walked for a week and a half to the nearest fort
Eventually Colter found a woman and settled down back in Missouri I believe. Two years later he was dead. A friend said it was the adventure that kept him alive. The writer of this version, a guy named Junger compared this phenomenon with Whalers out of New Bedford some years later. After a miserable three years on a bloody greasy whaling ship found they couldn't stand to be normal men in a sleepy town, so they signed up for another voyage. He said that Veit Nam vets couldn't return to normal life so they kept reenlisting. Colter, wasn't afraid that something would happen to him. He was worried that something wouldn't. This is what drove him. Junger says that Americans are secure in the fact that whey will always have a house, food, spending money, car and the rest, that there is no danger in their lives which seem meaningless. To artificially stimulate excitement men climb mountains, sky dive , ride motorcycles etc. Some die while doing it but to them its better that existing seventy five years and never have lived.
How many of us would rather die on a Harley at 110 mph with pipes roaring, or smash a plane into a foggy mountain or die in our easy chair with yesterday's paper across our faces?
Young man, one never knows when life will throw one in the thick of trouble and survival.