We had killed and skinned the only two buffaloes we had seen. I made the remark, as we were on our road home, that I thought that we were "in a poor locality for even stragglers."
Buck said: "Yes; and if fair hunting doesn't show up pretty soon, I'll begin to think that there will be no hunting here until June, as we were told at Springer's; and maybe we'd better put south."
As we came in sight of the cabin, we saw a covered wagon drawn up in front of the door. We were all delighted, excited, and speculated as to whom it could be, and what it meant. We were soon enlightened, for on coming up to the cabin, we were met by George Simpson and Virginia, she that was formerly Virginia Wood, but now Mrs. Simpson.
This couple the day before had been married at Fort Elliott, by the post adjutant. They had taken their wedding tour in a two-horse Bain wagon, over the virgin soil of the Panhandle of Texas, to our humble but hospitable abode, to spend their honeymoon. So I was in the presence of the first couple that was married in the Panhandle.
That evening, around our fireside, I began to get some idea of the magnitude of the slaughter of poor Lo's commissary. George told us of having been at the fort, where there was a large, well-stocked sutler's store, and that at a place called Sweet Water, on the Sweet Water creek, three miles below the fort, Charles Roth and Bob Wright had a large store, carrying all kinds of hunters' supplies, and they had acres of high piles of hides; that it was a wild and woolly place, having a large dance-hall, two restaurants, three saloons, small and large hunting outfits coming and going; generally, from ten to fifteen outfits there nearly every day; that the great masses of buffalo were south of the Red river, fifty miles south of there, and still moving south; that they would keep going gradually south, until by ancient custom they turned north; that they were expected to be back there in May on their way north; that all the hunters were going to follow the herds to Red, Pease, and Brazos rivers.
He said that the story of my being lost was a general subject of talk among the hunters and soldiers, and that it had been exaggerated and told in different versions so that he could hardly get them to accept the facts as I had told them in detail to the Wood family. One story was, that I had been gone twenty days, with nothing to eat. He informed us that old man Wood had located a place near the head of Gageby creek, ten miles northeast of Fort Elliott, and was cutting logs to build a house; and that he wanted Buck and me to come and get land by him, help build his house, and start the building-up of a community.
So we talked the matter over for two days, and then pulled out for Gageby, in due time arriving there and looking the country over for a few days.
George Simpson and myself fitted out to go and find the Mexican camp, and the people I had come from New Mexico with. I was anxious to get a War Department map before going back to the Owa Sula or Blue Water. So Buck and I rode to the fort. As is a rule at military frontier posts, we reported at the adjutant's office and registered our names, whence we came, and whither destined. When I asked for the map the commanding officer, who was present, asked what I wanted it for. I told him "I had made the mistake of being lost between the Blue Water and the Adobe Walls;" and before I could proceed with the reason why I wanted the map he called me inside the railing that partitioned off the office from the waiting-room, and said:
"Be seated. Now tell us all about that affair. We have heard different stories. Now I want it at first hand."