“Like all persons on the first trip, I was green in the use of the lasso, and Paint was given to all sorts of malicious dodging; perhaps I have not worked myself into a profuse perspiration with vexation a hundred and one times, in vain attempts to trap him.
“Not being able to catch my horse this morning, I hung my saddle on a wagon and walked, talking to the loquacious Canadians, whose songs and stories were most acceptable. They are a queer mixture, anyhow, these Canadians; rain or shine, hungry or satisfied, they are the same garrulous, careless fellows; generally caroling in honor of some brunette Vide Poche, or St. Louis Creole beauty, or lauding, in the words of their ancestry, the soft skies and grateful wine of La Belle France, occasionally uttering a sacré, or enfant de garce, but suffering no cloud of ill humor to overshadow them but for a moment. While walking with a languid step, cheering up their slow oxen, a song would burst out from one end of the train to the other, producing a most charming effect.”
The train was now approaching the buffalo range, and before long several buffalo were seen. Now, too, they had reached a country where “bois de vaches”—buffalo chips—were used for fuel, and the collecting of this was a part of the daily work after camp was made. More and more buffalo were seen, and before long we hear of the plain literally covered with them, and now, as buffalo were killed more often, Garrard is introduced to a prairie dish which no one will ever eat again. He says: “The men ate the liver raw, with a slight dash of gall by way of zest, which, served à la Indian, was not very tempting to cloyed appetites; but to hungry men, not at all squeamish, raw, warm liver, with raw marrow, was quite palatable.
“It would not do,” he continues, “for small hunting parties to build fires to cook with; for, in this hostile Indian country, a smoke would bring inquiring friends. Speaking of hostile Indians, reminds me of a question related by one of our men: at a party, in a Missouri frontier settlement, a lady asked a mountaineer, fresh from the Platte, ‘if hostile Indians are as savage as those who serve on foot!’
“Returning to camp the prairie was black with the herds; and, a good chance presenting itself, I struck spurs into Paint, directing him toward fourteen or fifteen of the nearest, distant eight or nine hundred yards. We (Paint and I) soon neared them, giving me a flying view of their unwieldy proportions, and, when within fifteen feet of the nearest I raised my rifle half way to the face and fired. Reloading, still in hot pursuit (tough work to load on a full run), I followed, though without catching up. One feels a delightfully wild sensation when in pursuit of a band of buffalo, on a fleet horse, with a good rifle, and without a hat, the winds playing around the flushed brow, when with hair streaming, the rider nears the frightened herd, and, with a shout of exultation, discharges his rifle. I returned to the party highly gratified with my first, though unsuccessful, chase, but Mr. St. Vrain put a slight damper to my ardor, by simply remarking—
“‘The next time you “run meat” don’t let the horse go in a trot and yourself in a gallop’ (I had, in my eagerness, leaned forward in the saddle, and a stumble of the horse would have pitched me over his head); by which well-timed and laconic advice, I afterward profited.”
From this time on there was much chasing of buffalo, but little killing of them, except by the old hands. The young ones, of course, neither knew how to shoot nor where to shoot, and our author naïvely remarks, after one of his chases: “To look at a buffalo, one would think that they could not run with such rapidity; but, let him try to follow with an ordinary horse, and he is soon undeceived.”
During the efforts of the greenhorns to kill buffalo this incident occurred: “Mr. Chadwick (of St. Louis, on his first trip, like several of us, for pleasure), seeing a partially blind bull, concluded to ‘make meat’ of him; crawling up close, the buffalo scented him and pitched about every way, too blind to travel straight or fast. Chad fired; the mad animal, directed by the rifle report, charged. How they did ‘lick it’ over the ground! He pursued, yelling, half in excitement, half in fear, till they were close to the wagons, where the pursuer changed tack, only to be shot by one of the teamsters with a nor’-west fusil.”
BUFFALO HERD NEAR LAKE JESSIE, UPPER MISSOURI RIVER