Life and adventures of "Billy" Dixon of Adobe Walls, Texas panhandle

by Billy Dixon

After this experience, the mules were harder than ever to control, and would "run at the drop of the hat" or the flip of a prairie dog's tail.

Fort Hays, at this time was the supply point for all the Government forts to the south, and remained as such until the Santa Fe railroad came through in the fall of 1872. I remained at Fort Hays until the fall of 1869, and this was my last work for the Government until 1874, when I was employed as a scout and guide under General Miles. During the five years I had been making my own way in the world, I had worked for the Government most of the time.

I was now eighteen years old, in perfect health, strong and muscular, with keen eyesight, a natural aptitude for outdoor life, an excellent shot, and had a burning desire to experience every phase of adventure to be found on the Plains. I had worked all the summer of 1869 with George Smith and Tom Campbell, and liked them so well that we had planned fitting up an outfit to hunt and trap that winter. So along in November the three of us bought a good team and wagon, traps and provisions, and guns and ammunition and started north along the Saline River. Campbell was an old trapper and knew how to take beaver, which were fairly plentiful along the streams.

My happiness now seemed complete, and I enjoyed to the fullest every moment of my life. Storm nor darkness nor hunger nor toil cooled my ardor in the slightest degree. We caught not only beaver, but several otter. Wolves abounded everywhere, and we trapped a large number. Their pelts were worth from $2.50 to $3 each. In this way we put in the winter, and made good money. We had a warm, comfortable dugout, with plenty of wood and water. I had no wish to return to a city. At intervals we would take a load of game to Hays City, where there was a ready market. Once we took in a load of elk, and got twenty dollars apiece for the carcasses.

The hunting of buffaloes for their hides began in the spring of 1870. That was also the beginning of the destruction of the buffalo. As I remember, the hunting was started by a firm of eastern hide-buyers whose agents came to Hays City and other towns near the buffalo range and offered prices, that made hide-hunting a profitable occupation.

We were in the very heart of the best buffalo country between the Dominion of Canada and the Rio Grande, and quickly abandoned trapping for buffalo hunting. The first offers were $1 each for cowhides and $2 each for bull hides, which enabled us to make money rapidly. As the slaughter increased, and the buffaloes grew scarcer prices were advanced, until $4 was being paid for bull hides by the fall of 1872.

During the winter of 1870 we ranged all over western Kansas, but principally along the Republican River and its tributaries. Generally, there were three or four men in an outfit, each having contributed his share for necessary expenses. They went where the range was best, and buffaloes most plentiful. A dugout was built and occupied as permanent headquarters camp, the hunters ranging for miles through the surrounding country. The only kind of dugout worth having was one with a big, open fire-place, near the edge of a stream of good water, with plenty of wood along its banks. We often occupied the same dugout for a month or more. Then, as the buffaloes grew less plentiful, we shifted our camp and built a new dugout, which was easily and quickly done.

From where the buffaloes were killed in the range, we hauled the hides to camp, where we dried them and hauled them to market. Though I was not quite eighteen years of age, there were very few men who could excel me in marksmanship, which possibly was a natural gift supplemented by more or less constant practice.

I always did my own killing, and generally had two experienced men to do the skinning. A capable man could skin fifty buffaloes a day, and usually was paid $50 a month. I have paid as much as twenty-five cents a hide to a good skinner. We often killed the buffaloes the day before they were to be skinned.

During the fall, Smith and Campbell grew tired of the business and wanted to quit. I bought the outfit, and straightway hired two men to work for me, and started out killing buffaloes more energetically than ever. One of my skinners was a Mexican and the other a man named Perkins.