2012 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 189B
According to Walt Reed in John Clymer, An artist’s rendezvous with the frontier west, “Thomas Fitzpatrick, a pertner of the Rocky Moutain Fur Company, was hurring ahead to the Rendezvous of 1832 at Pierre’s Hole to tell them that William Sublette with the company supply train was approaching. He was an experienced mountain man and felt fairly secure mounted on a good horse and leading another. Unexpectedly, he crossed paths with a roving band of Gros Ventre Indians and immediately became their quarry. He left one horse behind and raced away from his pursuers. He finally had to abandon his second horse, and managed to elude capture only by hiding in the rocks. Many days later he turned up at the Rendezvous afoot, unarmed, and weak from hunger. It was said that his hair had turned white from the ordeal.”
LITERATURE:
Walt Reed, John Clymer, An artist’s rendezvous with the frontier west (Flagstaff, Arizona:
Northland Press, 1976), pages 122-3, illustrated
PROVENANCE:
Gordon and Betty Tucker, Dallas, Texas, 1970s
Present owner, by descent