One day we were camping at the spring on Hackberry, south of Buffalo, when a couple of men rode up to us. They said that they were cowmen, and that they had lost their outfit. I invited them into my tent, and after supper gave them the boys’ bed, the boys themselves climbing into the covered wagon.
Early in the morning one of the men wakened me and asked for a revolver. There was an antelope in camp, he said. I handed him a Smith and Wesson, and peeped out, to see a fine buck standing just at the end of the wagon tongue, looking over the tent and wagon. The stranger opened fire at three or four paces and emptied the revolver. Then throwing it down as of no account, he asked for a gun. I gave him a Sharp’s rifle and a cartridge belt. In the meanwhile the antelope had walked a few yards away and turned to look at us. The man fired several shots, and threw down the rifle also, and as the boys were by this time climbing out of the wagon, one with a Winchester, the other with a little Ballard, he borrowed from them first one firearm and then the other, and blazed away without once drawing blood. Finally the buck deliberately moved over the hill and out of sight, while the man swore that it had a charmed life. We thought otherwise, however, and the boys followed it; soon returning with it swinging from a gun, which they carried on their shoulders like a pole.
I recall another ludicrous incident connected with this expedition. We happened to be at Buffalo Station once when Professor Snow, the much-loved Kansas naturalist, and at one time the chancellor of the State University, was in town with a large party of students, on his annual insect hunt.
The old Chisholm cattle trail led through Buffalo, and one day the owner of a large herd of Texas cattle, who was passing through, noticed Professor Snow and his party out on the prairie with their nets in their hands, running about as if possessed. It happened to be the first time that he had ever seen insect collectors at work, and his curiosity was aroused.
“What are those men doing?” he asked Jim Thompson, the storekeeper.
“Catching bugs,” was the laconic reply.
“I don’t believe it,” said the cowman. “They are grown men.”
“All right,” said Jim, “you can find out for yourself if you want to.”
The man started off after the Professor, and I waited, with a good deal of curiosity, to hear his report of the conversation. On his return he was in a brown study. The Professor had taken him into his tent, and shown him hundreds of mounted insects, reeling off their names to him until his head whirled.
“Well, did I tell you the truth?” Jim asked.