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The Lady and the Mountain Man:
Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship
The Greeley stage arrived by mid-morning and came to a stop at the stables not far from the inn. A male passenger dressed in tailored clothing from his head to his boots stepped out of the vehicle. He was wearing light colored, woolen breeches, a white shirt, silk bandana, a heavy, double-breasted, lined flannel coat, and a black woolen-lined driving cap with ear flaps. Isabella recognized him as the Englishman William Haigh. She’d had occasion to meet him once in Estes Park while he was visiting with Griff Evans. Carrying a few of her belongings, she walked to the stage. Jim followed alongside her, clutching her bags in each hand.
Ever the polite dandy, Haigh bowed briefly at the waist when he saw Isabella. The two exchanged cordialities, and then she introduced him to Mountain Jim. After expressing how honored he was to make his acquaintance, he told Jim his reputation had proceeded him and how much he would enjoy going on a hunting trip with him. Jim was courteous and thanked the Englishman for his thoughtfulness. Haigh extended his hand to shake Jim’s. It was a scene Isabella recalled vividly. “…[H]e put out a small hand cased in a perfectly fitting lemon colored kid glove,” she wrote in her memoirs. “As the mountain man stood there in his grotesque rags and odds and ends of apparel, his gentlemanliness of deportment brought into relief the innate vulgarity of a rich parvenu.”
Once the stage driver secured Isabella’s bags on the vehicle, it was time to go. Haigh helped Isabella into the coach while regaling her with news of England, his trip to the Rockies, and the influential people he’d come to know during his time in the American West. The driver cracked the whip, and the team of horses lit out. Isabella looked back to wave goodbye to the desperado she had come to know and dared to love. Jim had mounted his ride and was trudging through the mud and snow in the opposite direction. The dazzling sunlight broke through the thick tree line and danced on the renegade mountain man’s golden yellow hair. Slowly, his image faded into the snowy terrain.
