At this point I want to say that in all my experience in the buffalo country I never saw one die of old age and exhaustion, and can remember seeing only one "on the lift"—that is, in a situation where he could go no further. This one, an old bull, had got fast in a bog on the Canadian, and was unable to get out. Riding up to him, I threw my lariat over his head, after I had given my lariat a hitch over the horn of my saddle, and pulled the old fellow to firm ground. I left him grazing contentedly on the bank. The buffalo was a hardy animal, and though they often got very thin during a hard winter, yet they never became so thin and starved as to go off their feet like cattle.
I returned to Fort Dodge fully satisfied with my day's ride, and next day started on my return trip to Fort Hays. By the time I reached Fort Hays, a considerable number of hunters had been driven in by the storm. I told them of the black ocean of buffaloes I had seen northwest of Fort Dodge, which was good news to them, and set every man to overhauling his outfit.
I was impatient to reach my camp, so I loaded up with supplies and pulled out. I found the boys in good shape and glad to see me. Next day we made a scout out west of Hackberry, and found thousands of buffaloes. It was plain that the big herd had drifted a long way during the blizzard, and had been as far south as the Arkansas. When the weather moderated they worked back to their old range.
Along in May, 1872, we moved our camp from Hackberry to a point north of the Kansas Pacific railroad.
While in camp on Hackberry I met with an experience which rarely ever happened to me—I got completely lost, so badly that I had no idea of direction. Perkins and I had been out all day killing and skinning buffaloes. We had worked late, and it had grown cloudy and dark when we started for camp. Both were afoot. In moving from each fallen buffalo to another we had wandered further than we suspected. Each thought camp was in a different direction. So positive was Perkins that he was right that I followed him for a time.
I was relying mostly upon the direction of the buffalo trails and when I found that we were crossing them instead of following them, I was convinced that we had lost our bearings. I called Perkin's attention to the trails. He insisted that he was going in the right direction. Perkins was a windy story-teller, and was relating a war tale. I disliked to interrupt him. Finally, however, I said that unless the wind had changed we were certainly going in the wrong direction.
"Oh, the wind has changed," he replied: "I knew it would this morning."
About this time we reached the head of a draw, on which we thought our camp was situated. At that moment the clouds drifted from the face of the moon, and we saw a bunch of buffaloes that had bedded down for the night. This convinced me that Perkins was "going it wild," as I was sure that buffalo would not stay that close to our camp.
Rovers that we were, with sails turned for every wind, we decided to kill some of the buffaloes, as they would be conveniently at hand, for skinning next morning, and we shot five or six.
Pursuing our way down the draw, I was soon positive that we were lost. Perkins put up a lively argument to prove that he was not mistaken. When we reached another bunch of buffaloes that had bedded, Perkins threw up the sponge. Four bulls were lying together. We blazed into them, made a warm bed of two hides, with the hair turned inside, and made a dry camp for the night. We slept as warm as if we were in a feather bed, though the night was cold.