I am a Mountain Man

I wrote the other day about Kenny Ray and how well he shooting his bow. He is going to start shooting in a league tomorrow. Why he has been practing with his bow I deciced to go out this past Sunday morning and start to shoot my .50 Caliber muzzleloader Hawken rifle again. It has been about 17 years since I last popped a cap.On the first shot I had forgot how it kicked with a 100 grains of double f powder in it. I let the brass end plate rest right on my collar bone,it is still very tender tonight. I had forgotten how much fun it is to shoot and how much I hate cleaning it after shooting. I did shoot about 15 times but i need to go back outand finish sighting in for 50 yards and find out where I am at a 100 yards. I would like to shoot in a league later this summer and enter a meat shootas well that the Greene county fish and game club holds this fall.Ther is also a Mountain man Rendevous in friendship Indiana the first part of Septemeber. Kenny Ray's boy scout troop always attends, this year I may go in My mountain man deerskin shirt that my mom made from my deer skins and my coon skin hat.
I came across a creed i think you call last night going thru some stories that I have been writing. I like it very much.
My mother was a badger, my father was a griz,I can out shoot , out fight, out cuss, and out drink any man. I have the fastest horse, the sharpest knife, and the finest rifle in the mountains. Hear my challenge echo in the valleys for any man of any nation to try and lift my top knot. I will fight to the death for my right to be a free man, to trap the beaver and hunt the elk, to drink from a cool streams, and to sleep under the stars. I have no man to answer to except myself. I fear no creature on Gods green earth,for I am a Mountain Man.
J.F Ballard