Searching out every point in the country, next day we followed an old trail down to the Canadian valley, striking it at a high point, afterwards known as Dixon's Point, on account of its being opposite Dixon's Creek. We soon reached Adobe Walls.
All the buildings had been finished, and everybody was doing a good business. Quite a number of hunters had come down from the north, and a plain trail had been opened between Adobe Walls and Dodge City, a hundred and fifty miles away. Freight outfits were making regular trips between the two places.
All of us hunters acquainted with the habits of the buffalo knew that the herds would soon be coming north from the Staked Plains region where they had spent the winter. The spring had been unusually late, which held back the buffaloes in their migration. There was nothing for us to do but wait until the buffaloes were moved by that strange impulse that twice annually caused them to change their home and blacken the Plains with their countless, moving forms. We could lie around camp or vary the monotony by going to Adobe Walls and joining in the fun that was rampant at that place. Our amusements were mostly card-playing, running horse-races, drinking whisky and shooting at targets, the latter to improve our marksmanship.
All this soon got old to me, and about the last of May I pulled out again. Crossing the Canadian at the mouth of White Deer Creek, I followed the latter to its head and went out on the Plains, keeping along their edge until I came to Dixon Creek. Here I found an ideal camping place, with plenty of wood, grass and water. I decided to build our permanent camp, and was soon industriously at work. I knew by the signs that buffaloes had been through here, and it was certain that they would soon be coming back.
I had two men with me, "Frenchy," whom I employed as a skinner, and Charley Armitage, an agreeable fellow who had come from England. Those Englishmen certainly loved the life of the frontier.
We had been here two or three days, when the expected happened. Getting up one morning earlier than my companions, I chunked the fire for breakfast, and stood waiting for it to begin blazing. Then a familiar sound come rolling toward me from the Plains—a sound deep and moving, not unlike the rumbling of a distant train passing over a bridge. In an instant I knew what was at hand. I had often heard it. I had been listening for it for days, even weeks.
Walking out on a high point near camp, I gazed eagerly toward the horizon. I could see nothing save the vast undulating landscape. My ears, however, had revealed to me what my eyes could not see. The buffaloes were coming!
Hurrying back to camp, I shouted the good news to Armitage and "Frenchy," rousing them from their sleep and telling them to hurry breakfast. They lost no time in making coffee, frying meat and browning a cake of bread. I saddled my horse by the time breakfast was ready, and after eating hurriedly I sprang into my saddle and went south at a gallop.
After I had ridden about five miles, I began striking small bunches of buffalo bulls, all headed north and all moving. A further ride of eight miles carried me out on the Plains. My muscles hardened and grew warm at the sight. As far as the eye could reach, south, east and west of me there was a solid mass of buffaloes—thousands upon thousands of them—slowly moving toward the north.
The noise I had heard at early day-break was the bellowing of the bulls. At this time of year—the breeding season—the bellowing of the countless bulls was continuous, a deep, steady roar, that seemed to reach to the clouds. It was kept up night and day, but seemed to be deepest and plainest at early morning.