Dragon TeethAs he appears in an early photograph, William Johnson is a handsome young man with acrooked smile and a naive grin. A study in slouching indifference, he lounges against a Gothicbuilding. He is a tall fellow, but his height appears irrelevant to his presentation of himself. Thephotograph is dated 'New Haven, 1875,' and was apparently taken after he had left home tobegin studies as an undergraduate at Yale College.A later photograph, marked 'Cheyenne, Wyoming, 1876,' shows Johnson quite differently.His mouth is framed by a full mustache; his body is harder and enlarged by use; his jaw is set; hestands confidently with shoulders squared and feet wide and ankle-deep in mud. Clearly visibleis a peculiar scar on his upper lip, which in later years he claimed was the result of an Indianattack.The following story tells what happened between the two pictures.For the journals and notebooks of William Johnson, I am indebted to the estate of W. J. T.Johnson, and particularly to Johnson's great-niece, Emily Silliman, who permitted me to quoteextensively from the unpublished material. (Much of the factual contents of Johnson's accountsfound their way into print in 1890, during the fierce battles for priority between Cope and Marsh,which finally involved the U.S. government. But the text itself, or even excerpts, was neverpublished, until now.) |