After a quiet night and a somewhat later start than usual, the day's run to Cow Creek began, and not five miles from the camp site a sizable herd of buffalo was sighted. The same thing took place again, the same confusion, the same senseless chasing without weapons, but this time there was added the total abandonment of several wagons while the drivers, unhitching one animal, grabbed guns and joined in the attack, not realizing that mules hardly were suited for chasing an animal which, clumsy as it appeared, nearly equalled a horse in speed when once started on its awkward gallop. But in the results of the chase there was one noticeable difference between this and the previous hunt, for the green nimrods had asked questions of the hunters since their first try at the prairie cattle, and they had cherished the answers. They no longer fired blindly, after the first flush of their excitement died down, for now they ranged up alongside their lumbering victims from the rear and aimed a little behind the short ribs, or a few inches above the brisket and behind the shoulder. And this hunt was a great success from the standpoint of the plainsmen who had bought Colt's newfangled repeating pistols, for they proved their deadliness in such capable hands, and speeded up the kill.
A group of tenderfeet watched an old hunter butcher a fat cow in almost the time it takes to tell of it, slitting the skin along the spine from the shoulder to the tail, and down in front of the shoulder and around the neck. He removed it as far down as the brisket and laid the freed skin on the ground to receive the fleece from along the spine, the protruding hump ribs, which he severed with a tomahawk; and then he added the liver, tongue, kidneys, certain parts of the intestine, and one shoulder. Severing the other shoulder and cutting the skin free on both sides of the body, he bundled up the choice cuts in it, carried it to his horse and returned to camp. In a few moments the butchering became general, and soon the triumphant hunters returned to the wagons with fresh meat enough to provide an unstinted feast for the entire caravan.
The journey was resumed and the twenty miles to Cow Creek was made in good time. Here the difficulties of the Little Arkansas were again met and conquered and the wagons corralled before dark.
It was at this camp that Tom and Hank became certain that they were being spied upon by Pedro and his companions. Seated around their fire, smoking with deep content after a heavy meal of fresh buffalo meat, Hank began to push his foot back and forth on the ground, making deeper and deeper, longer and longer, the groove his moccasin heel was slowly wearing in the soft earth. Finally his foot touched his companion's knee but, without pausing, kept wearing down the groove.
"Th' geese went over early this year," he said, looking up at the starry sky. "Reckon we'll have th' hot weather a leetle ahead o' time on th' Dry Route."
Tom did not change a muscle as the familiar, warning sentence struck his ears. "Yes," he replied. "Be glad when I gits inter Santa Fe, with th' cool mountains all around. Reckon you'll spend most o' your time playin' monte, an' be clean busted when it's time ter hit th' trail fer Bent's."
Hank laughed softly. "Did I hear ye say Jim Ogden had some good likker?" he asked.
"That's what I said."
"'Tain't none o' that thar Taos lightnin'?" skeptically inquired Hank.
"How could it be, him jest a-comin' from Missouri?"