Joe Meek was a mountain man and a fur trapper. In 1834, Joe Meek led a six man trapping party to the annual rendezvous When 200 Comanche Indians attacked, the men slid off there mules, slit the mules' throats, and pulled them into a tight circle. The men agreed that 3 men should fire and the rest reload. Again and again the Indians attacked, then Meek said" The burning sun scorched us to faintness. Our faces brimmed with powder and dust, our throats parched and tounges swollen with thirst,and our bodies aching from our cramped position''
At the end, 42 Comanches killed and the more wounded.
When the Indians retreated the men ran 75 miles before coming to water and another 75 miles before coming to the rendezvous.
After the Whitman massacre in 1848, Meek was the one that went to tell the news to the president. He arrived in Washington D.C. in May, 1848, not shaven, very dirty, and in his dirty clothes. He went into the Coleman Hotel and demanded, "Give me a piece of antelope."
"We do not serve antelope," said the waiter
''Then bring me beef four pound'll do," ordered Meek.
Later Meek told a senator, "Tell Jim Polk (the president) that Joe Meek wants to see him."
When it was suggested that he might want to clean up a little Meek said, "Business now, toilet later."
He was married to an Indian woman. Joe Meek was the first United States Marshal!
Sources:
Johansen, Dorothy O. Empire of the Columbia. Harper & Row, Publishers,
1967
Steber, Rick. Mountain Men. Bonanza Publishing, 1990.