American mountain man and
survivor. In
1823, he was
mauled by a
grizzly bear and seriously
injured.
Andrew Henry, who was in charge of Glass'
expedition, asked for two
volunteers to stay behind to give Glass a
decent burial.
John Fitzgerald and
Jim Bridger agreed to stay. However, the two men
abandoned Glass, taking his
rifle with them. It's belived that they either thought he was
dead or were
fleeing some sort of
danger.
Glass, however, was not dead. He
dragged himself to a nearby
spring, where he ate
wild cherries and
buffalo berries for more than a
week. Then, with only a
razor for a
weapon, he staggered off toward
Fort Kiowa on the
Missouri River, 200 miles away.
At first, Glass was only able to cover a
mile a day. He found a
pack of
wolves with a freshly killed
buffalo calf. He drove the wolves away by setting
fire to the
grass, then
ate as much of the
buffalo as he could. Finally, after weeks of
slow travel, he reached the
safety of
Fort Kiowa.
After learning that
Andrew Henry was building a
fort on the
Big Horn River, Glass started off for
Yellowstone to find the men who had abandoned him. He found and
forgave Jim Bridger, then caught up with
John Fitzgerald at
Fort Atkinson. Glass demanded his
rifle back, then
berated Fitzgerald, saying, "Settle the matter with your own
conscience and your
God!"
Glass died ten years later at the hands of
Arikara Indians.
Research from "GURPS Old West" by Ann Dupuis, Liz Tornabene, Lynda Manning-Schwartz, and Rob Smith, published by Steve Jackson Games, 1991, p. 101.