Peter Koch’s 10 page journal has invaluable details as to the sordid occupations of men like Liver-Eating Johnson, who came late to the Rockies after the beaver had been trapped out. They were more like a cross between exterminators, liquor store owners, pimps and lumberjacks than what one would think of as a Mountain Man. As usual with the journals reprinted by H. Duane Hampton, the details of this life tend to confirm Del Gue’s wild sounding stories of Johnson, permitting the researcher to scrape away all of the nobility to arrive at a figure that is nevertheless compelling.

After reading the following whiskey recipe, understanding that the River Crows were drunks, and the haughty Mountain Crows refused to drink it, one better understands the story of Johnson [who apparently bought a Flathead girl with a barrel or two of Whiskey] being captured and held by his Blackfeet enemies while packing whiskey into Indian Country. One need then only scrape away Del Gue’s romantic, after-the-fact, oral patina to arrive at a rough and realistic outline of events.

Koch’s account is one of the numerous useful tools for illuminating the barebones narrative that remains after removing the romantic flesh.

“A great deal of whiskey was sold to the Indians in defiance of the united states laws. As there was profit in it, it could not be otherwise. There were no officers within several hundred miles to enforce the law, and as far as there was any public opinion it sustained the whiskey traffic. I say whiskey, but it is only by a euphemism that the vile stuff on which the Indians got drunk can be called by that name. The recipe for its manufacture was something like this:

“1 quart alcohol

“1 pound rank, black chewing tobacco

“1 handful red peppers

“1 bottle Jamaica ginger

“1 quart black molasses

“Water from the Missouri ad libitum.

“Mix well and boil till all the strength is drawn from the tobacco and peppers.

“The Indian who had consumed a bottle of this stuff must have sighed sadly for soda-water the next morning; but it is possible that it did not do as much harm after all as a stronger and purer article would have done.”

John Johnson was a drug dealer, and not a purveyor of quality product, but of an article so adulterated as to lack the slightest resemblance to that which he claimed to be trading.