The Border and the Buffalo: An Untold Story of the Southwest Plains / The Bloody Border of Missouri and Kansas. The Story of the Slaughter of the Buffalo. Westward among the Big Game and Wild Tribes. A Story of Mountain and Plain

by John R. Cook

This was the morning of the 15th of November, 1874. As I walked along I was possessed of hopes of a successful future. I went down Blue Water to where it empties into the South Canadian. I saw a smoke across the river on a little creek that put into the Canadian from the south side. This must be the camp, and the Mexican had said nothing about crossing the river. This smoke was more than a mile away, near a brush thicket. I forded the river and went up the creek, only to find an abandoned camp. The sign was fresh; they had not been gone long. I followed the wagon-trail up the creek to where it crossed, taking up a slope in a southeast direction. I hurried on to the top of the plains, hoping to get a view of the outfit I was looking for.

Standing here and looking over a vast stretch of country, I saw to my left the rugged and irregular breaks of the Canadian; in front of me some two miles or more were the breaks of a cañon coming into the river from the south; and on the opposite side of the cañon saw the outfit.

I was hunting, heading northward toward the Canadian river. They had traveled a southeast course to round the head of the cañon, and were traveling down the eastern side of it when I saw them. Thinking I could yet intercept them, I headed in the direction of the mouth of the cañon. Having short buffalo-grass to walk over and a level, stoneless prairie, without a sign of mesquite or sage-brush, as the cowboys would say, "I fairly rattled my hocks."

Arriving at the mouth of the cañon, there was no one in sight. But, standing on a jutting promontory, I could see scattering bands of antelope, a large flock of wild turkeys, a few straggling buffalo, and one large lobo or timber wolf. I went down into the Canadian river bottom proper, turned east, crossed the ravine below the mouth of the cañon, and skirted along the slope, carefully looking for the wagon-tracks which are always, in the short-grass country, very plain for several days.

I traveled down parallel with the main river about three miles further, and no results. I turned, going up the slope, going on to the table-land, expecting to find the trail going eastward over the bench or table-land. I traveled along this bench and watched the ground closely, occasionally stopping and scanning the country over. In this way I had traveled possibly two miles when I heard the report of a gun to my right front, and, as I judged, a mile away.

From here I could have gone straight back to the camp of Mexicans I had left, not over ten miles at farthest, as I believed. This I should have done. But I reasoned thus: The man who fired that gun was a member of the party I was seeking; I would yet get to them and would offer to pay them well, to go back with me to the Mexican camp for my own gun and outfit, and then work my way to Fort Elliott. Acting upon this reasoning, I started in the direction that the report of the gun came from, walking very rapidly and taking no note of the ground.

I had gone about a mile when I came in sight of another break in the plain by a draw running back from the river. Before going into the draw, or little valley, with a watercourse running through it, and standing pools (at that season the water not running over the riffles), I took a good look in every direction and could see no sign of humanity. I was dripping wet with perspiration, and could feel the pangs of hunger keenly, but was not thirsty, as I had taken a drink of water when crossing the draw below the mouth of the first cañon. I went down to the nearest pool of water, stripped off, and took a good bath, and after rubbing my body thoroughly with the outside of my outer shirt, and dressing, I walked up to the plateau opposite the way I had come. I sat down on a chalky point facing the Canadian river.

While resting here and scanning the country over, my eye fell upon a peculiar-looking object on a flat in front of me not more than sixty rods away. The grass here was the short, curly buffalo variety. Not a switch or object of any kind around this lone object. I gazed at it for some time, but could not make it out. My curiosity was now aroused; so I started for it, and found upon arrival that it was a five-gallon water-keg with a gray woolen blanket sewed around it, the work having been done with a sacking-needle and twine. It was lying near the center of a fresh trail made by five or six wagons drawn by both horses and mules, the tracks pointing southeast. I followed this trail until near dusk, and, no sign of overtaking any one being apparent that night, I turned around and retraced my steps nearly a mile, to where I had passed at the head of a draw an abandoned camp.

There was quite a pile of wood that had been gathered and not used. The place was on high ground overlooking the country to the north and west. There was a thicket of stunted hackberry and palodura, hard poles of china-wood, close to where the old camp-fire had been. There was probably an acre of it all together. It was now quite dark and the stars were twinkling. I picked up a dry twig and reached into my pocket for my penknife. To my chagrin and discomfiture I found I had left it in my other pocket, when I put on my best trousers that morning. I immediately placed my right hand across my breast to feel for my match-box, which I always carried in my left outside shirt pocket, when to my delight I found my matches were safe and all right. I then gathered some fine twigs, and soon had a rousing fire.

There was a trickling stream of water coming out of the scrubby wood patch, and the campers who had preceded me had dug a hole about two feet deep and thirty inches across for the water to run into. It was full at this time, so I was assured of this and a camp-fire. I was very tired and quite hungry. There was an empty Pierre Lorillard tobacco-box here which the campers had left. This I used for a head-rest, and in a reclining position before my fire I began to think of ways and means. I finally decided to retrace my steps and get back to the Mexican camp. So I folded my hat, tied a handkerchief around my head, placed the hat on the tobacco-box for a pillow, stretched out and went to sleep. Three times during the night I was awakened by the cold. Then I would get up, replenish the fire, get warm, lie down and sleep again.