Odds & Ends #8

This is the title page to Manly Wade Wellman’s 1953 book THE LAST MAMMOTH, which I first read when I was in the 7th grade. It was the author’s belief that the wooly mammoth did not become completely extinct in North America until some time between the 1400s and the 1700s. The story, which is set in 1755, has a young frontiersman named Sam Ward being sent west into an unexplored region of North Carolina to aid a Cherokee tribe of Native Americans that is being menaced by a beast “big like a hill, hairy like a bear, wise like a spirit” which the natives had named Giluhsti, the strong, hairy one. After its mate died, Giluhsti (who had lived in peace with the tribe for many years) turned rogue, causing the natives to rename him Giluhda, the hairy killer. In answer to the tribe’s request for help, Sam is sent with his “fire-weapon” (Kentucky long rifle) to kill Giluhda, thus setting into motion an adventure yarn worthy of James Fenimore Cooper himself.