In approaching our camp, it had been the practice of the Cheyennes to come with their horses running at headlong speed, possibly to "throw a scare" into the white men. We at once set our heads against this sort of thing, and soon convinced the Indians that we would fire into them if the practice were repeated.
Indian Camp of Buffalo Hide Tepees.
All these Cheyennes were rigged out in full war style. Each had a led horse, his war horse, which was the Indian's pride, and which he loved above his other possessions. He gave his war horse the best of care, and kept him expressly for battle.
The detachments of this big Cheyenne war party were about three days passing our camp, and during that time we remained close at home. One of us constantly stood guard on a high point close by. There was smell of Indian in the air. Our horses were picketed during the day, and at night we tied them to the wagons. There were only four of us, and we could not afford to make the slightest mistake.
After the country was clear of Indians, we made a trip over on Sharpe's Creek, but found no buffaloes—the passing of the Indians had scared the buffaloes out of their wits. If the buffaloes would not come to us, we would go to the buffaloes, so we shifted camp from the Cimarron down to the Beaver, in "No Man's Land."
Making short drives each day, to spy out the country, we got as far west as the present town of Guymon, Okla., where we camped several days to clean up several scattering bunches of buffaloes, all bulls. These old bulls were easily killed, and their hides brought the best prices.
Here we met some of the same Cheyennes that had passed our camp on the Cimarron. They were on their way back home to Indian Territory. They recognized us. I had acquired some knowledge of the Cheyenne language, and questioned them about their trip to the Ute country. It was funny to hear them tell how they had "run the Utes clean over the mountains." They claimed they had killed stacks and stacks of Utes, going through the motions of how the Utes ran in getting away from the Cheyennes.
After making a kill of buffaloes, the hides were always left on the ground to dry, before hauling them to market. We had left a big lot of hides and provisions at our Cimarron camp. The passing of the Indians on their way back home made us feel that it might be well to see what the situation was in our old camp. We expected to find all our hides gone and our provisions stolen; to our great surprise we found everything just as we had left it. The plains Indians were highly suspicious, and it is possible that they feared the provisions might be poisoned.
The thinning out of the buffaloes made hunting laborious. Riding out early one morning, I managed to kill about thirty during the day's hunt, all of them cows. It was a strange fact that buffalo cows and bulls ranged together only during the breeding season; at other times they went in separate bunches.