Charlie found a few straggling bands of buffalo, and killed quite a number from them.
The morning they all pulled out for Griffin I was left alone, in charge of 3363 hides, less the 200 Hadley had started with, in three different camps.
It was now the early part of April.
As Charlie bade me "good-by," he being the last one to leave the camp, he said he would be back in six days. I had just three quarts of flour (for we had loaned "Arkansaw Jack" a portion of the flour we got from Goff) and about one-half pound of coffee. Out of the twelve pounds of coffee we got from Goff we had used all but what was left with me.
I saddled up and made the rounds of the other camps and was back by midday. After frying some choice meat and making a cup of coffee, I ate my dinner and went upon the lookout.
While there I determined at the first opportunity to be the owner of a pair of good field-glasses. Looking to the southwest, some five or six miles away, I saw what I took to be a team traveling in an easterly direction. I looked so long and so intently that my eyes watered, and for a little time everything blurred. I made up my mind to find out for sure what it was. I brought "Keno," my horse, in, and saddled up. Before starting I cut a china-wood pole, about twelve feet long, sharpened one end, tied an old red shirt on the other end, went up on the lookout, and, like a discoverer, planted my standard. There were two other round-tops, one about three miles west, and the other about two miles northeast of this one. They all had a similarity, and I wished to be sure to not get misled, in case I might be at times in some place where I could not distinguish one from another of the three. Taking a good look again south and west, I was satisfied now it was a team I saw. So I decided to travel south toward the McKinzie trail. Coming down and mounting "Keno," off we started in a little fox-trot. After going about five miles I came to a well-beaten trail, turned west on it, and soon met the team in a depression of the land. The driver was none other than Hi. Bickerdyke. He told me it was about ten miles back to his camp; that he and the two men with him had 1700 hides, all in one camp; that the farthest carcass from camp was not over one and one-half miles; that his camp was on a tributary of the Salt Fork, coming in from the south side. He had heard of our success through "Arkansaw Jack," who was at his camp a few days before. Said he was "crazy for a chew of tobacco." I had about one-third of a plug of Lorillard with me, and plenty in camp. I cut enough from the piece to do me and gave him the rest; whereupon he said, "My troubles have come to an end."
We talked for some minutes, and down the trail he went, going after supplies, and I back to camp. My standard could plainly be seen for three or four miles in any direction, at that time of the year, for the atmosphere was not hazy.
How different this first night alone in this camp from the ones I spent alone a few months before! I now had blankets, a good gun, and a horse to ride.
I was awakened the next morning by the gobbling of turkeys, and for the next three weeks there was an incessant gobble! gobble! gobble! The fifth day, as I was going from the second to the first camp, I came to and crossed a travois trail going in a southwest course. This trail was made sometime between the time I had passed here coming back the day before and the time I discovered it.