And here now I would make a killing. Taking the best shot that presented itself, I fired and the bullet went away to the right and kicked up a dust two hundred yards beyond them. They all turned back the way they came from, and I jumped up and ran, following them until they stopped, when I dropped flat upon the ground. Some had turned their heads and were looking back in the direction where I lay.
I gradually rose up into a sitting position as soon as they quit looking, and shot at the nearest one, and off the whole band went. I gave them six parting shots and not a bison fell. What kind of a hunter had Charlie Cook for a partner? Great Scott! here was a golden opportunity, and no results. Then I got fidgety and went to camp. Charlie had been watching me through my field-glasses, and when he saw that the broken-legged cow and the band that followed her would cross the creek a little way below camp, he struck down the creek with a belt full of cartridges and seventy-five extra rounds in a haversack. Just as they all got out a little way from the west bank of the creek and had slowed down to a slow walk, he shot the leader through the lungs, and the next one the same way. Noticing the broken-legged cow about the middle of the band, as it was strung out, he gave her a shot. By this time the first one he had shot lay down and others were hooking her, and the result was he got what is called "a stand," and killed thirty-seven of them, and could easily have exterminated the band, but what were left of them were mostly yearlings and two-year-olds which would be called kip hides, the price of which we were warned would not bring to exceed 75 cents apiece that year, and the buyers claimed they did not want them at all.
I could hear the sound of Charlie's gun as I was on my road to camp. But I did not think of him in connection with it, on account of his affected eye; but on arriving at camp I learned it was he.
The boys had both teams hitched up and were about to start in the direction I had been shooting.
I said, "Boys, I did not kill one; I'm no good."
Jimmie said: "Maybe your gun is no good. Did you look at the sights before you left camp? Charlie did the same thing last fall on the Washita. He shot away about thirty cartridges before he knew what was the matter."
I picked up my gun and looked, and sure enough! the front bead had slipped in the slot on the gun-barrel.
There was a large cotton wood tree about 110 yards from my wagon. I had the Mexican tack a box-lid onto the tree, with a charcoal in the center of it. The circle was eight inches in diameter. I took a rest off of the hind wheel of the wagon, fired, and missed the tree.
Just then Charlie came into camp, and finding out what my troubles were, he said, "I am glad you found it was not your fault."
We moved the bead block into the slot to where it had slipped from, and I fired again, getting inside the circle this time. Then I was pleased, and confidence in myself was again restored.