Miller painted this watercolor version of his popular Lost Greenhorn between 1959 and 1960 for William Walters of Baltimore. The artist had begun to explore this narrative in the early 1850s and enthusiastically included it in his large commission. The theme was one that he may have created from western adventure literature of the time, and he may not really have experienced it himself during his western travels with Stewart. Nonetheless, he recounted the event, inserting Stewart’s English cook John as the challenged protagonist. Miller wrote the following, jingoistic account:
This was John (our cook), he was an Englishman and did no discredit to that illustrious nation in his stupid conceit and wrong-headed obstinacy. Our Captain, when any one boasted, put them to the test, so a day was given to John and he started off early alone. The day passed over, night came,–but so did not John. Another day rolled over, the hunters returning at evening without having met him. The next morning men were dispatched in different quarters, and at about two o’clock, one of the parties brought in the wanderer—crest fallen and nearly starved;–he was met by a storm of ridicule and roasted on every side by the Trappers. Thus carrying out that ugly maxim of Rochefoucault’s “There is always something in the misfortune of our friends not disagreeable to us.”
