The Life of a Fossil Hunter

by Charles H. Sternberg

When within a few miles of this post, we saw a large herd of buffalo lying down a mile away. It was no easy matter to crawl toward them over the plain, pushing myself along without raising my body above the short grass, but after strenuous efforts I got within shooting distance without disturbing them, and was resting for a shot, when the rancher rode through the herd and sent them all off at a lope. Much angered and almost tempted to turn my gun on the man, I returned to the wagon, and we drove on across country that had been cropped as if by a great herd of sheep by the thousands of buffalo that had passed that way on their journey south.

Anxious to find picketing-ground and water, we reached the Arkansas River, where in a swale covered with grass and willows were paths cut by the buffalo. I lay down in one of these, and bringing my gun to my shoulder, was just drawing bead, when a large animal rushed across my line of vision at right angles to the trail. I pulled the trigger, and down went the brown mass in a heap on the ground.

Swinging my gun above my head, I rushed forward shouting, “I’ve killed a buffalo!”—to find that I had shot a Texas cow. Terrified at the thought of its owner’s anger, we rushed back to the wagon, and, whipping up the ponies, sped away as if the furies were after us. But cooler second thoughts led us to the conclusion that the cow had come north with the buffalo, and was as much our prey as the buffalo themselves.

Just before sunset we reached a part of the country through which the buffalo had not passed, where a rich carpet of grass, covering all the plain, offered plenty of food for our tired ponies. Here we were delighted to find, standing in a ravine, an old bull buffalo, which had been driven out of the herd to die. Concealing ourselves behind the carcass of a cow, we opened fire upon him from our Spencer carbines, and continued to riddle his poor old body with leaden slugs until his struggles ceased. Even then, when he had lain down to rise no more, we crawled up behind him and threw stones at him, to make sure that he was dead. We found his flesh too tough for food; but it was an exciting event to us two boys to kill this massive beast, in earlier days perhaps the leader of the herd.

In this connection I might tell of a chase I had several years later, while living on a ranch in eastern Ellsworth County. I saw a huge buffalo bull come loping along from the hills, headed for a section of land that was inclosed by a wire fence. On the other side of this section there was a piece of timber-land, and fearing that if he got into the dense timber I should lose him, I rode after him at the top of my speed.

When his lowered head struck the wire fence it flew up like a spring gate and immediately closed down behind him. In order to follow, I had either to cut the wire or go out of my way to a gate half a mile to the south. I decided on the latter course, and applied quirt and spur to my horse, but upon reaching the gate, discovered my escaping quarry already halfway across the section. I got just near enough to put a bullet into his rump as he passed through the fence on the other side, and disappeared in the dense woods beyond.

In my excitement I shouted to my pony, and, dismounting and standing on the wire to hold it down, yelled at him to come across. But a sudden fit of obstinacy had seized him, and he would not come. I had to let the fence up while I thrashed him, and then as soon as I got it under my feet again, he pulled back as before. We repeated this performance until I was exhausted and gave up the struggle.

But upon casting a look of despair in the direction of the vanished buffalo, I was both astonished and ashamed to see him standing under an elm tree not ten feet away, covered up all except his eyes by a great wild grapevine, and gazing in mute astonishment at the struggle between Nimrod and his pony. I have always regretted that I took advantage of the confidence he placed in me, for as soon as I could control my jumping nerves, I shot the noble beast behind the shoulder, and he fell.

I saw my last herd of buffalo in Scott County, Kansas, in 1877. Antelope, however, continued to be abundant as late as 1884, and only two years ago I saw a couple of them among some cattle near Monument Rocks, in Gove County.

In camp, during those early days, we were rarely out of antelope meat, and even now my mouth waters at the thought of the delicious tenderloin, soaked first in salt water to season it and remove the blood, then covered with cracker dust, and fried in a skillet of boiling lard. In those days a hind quarter could be hung up under the wagon in the hottest part of summer, and not spoil. The wind hermetically sealed it, and there were no blow-flies then. The early settlers of a new country bring with them, and protect, their enemies, and destroy their friends, the skunks, badgers, wildcats, and coyotes, as well as hawks, eagles, and snakes, because they kill a chicken or two as a change from their usual diet of prairie dogs and rabbits.