Jimmie Dunlap and Pedro Laredo had driven up to within less than a quarter of a mile, and had witnessed more than half the slaughter.
I helped all hands at skinning until an hour from sundown; and, being nearly exhausted, lay down on the buffalo-grass, with a fresh-skinned hide rolled up for a pillow, and stretched myself out for a rest.
My nerves had been at a high tension; the heat of the day had been oppressive; then stooping over so much while taking off the hides I got dizzy; all of which contributed to my utter fatigue. The other three men worked on until it got too dark to see well; then we all went to camp, having skinned, all told, fifty-nine of the eighty-eight carcasses. I had killed bulls principally, on account of their hides being more valuable than the others. Sometimes I had to kill cows that were on the outside, and at times they would obstruct a shot at a bull.
The next morning early, Charlie, Jimmie and the Mexican drove out and finished the skinning, while I reloaded shells. Before noon everybody was in camp and the 88 hides pegged out and drying.
We hunted from this camp with varying success until the middle of July, when we moved south on the Canadian and camped on Red Deer, near where the Wood families and I camped the winter before with the soldiers and Kiowas. About a week before we made this move we went back and poisoned the hides at the first camp. Also, those at the second camp on Wolf creek. The day before we left it, Charlie and I had ridden south from Wolf creek to the edge of the Canadian breaks and saw a few scattering bands. But we thought there would be plenty of buffaloes in that region later on.
The day we moved, the Mexican wanted some antelope-hides to make himself a suit of clothes, and started ahead with my gun and belt, he taking the course that we told him we would take to cross the table-land, between the two streams. If my recollection serves me right, from where we were and the direction we would travel it was about ten or twelve miles. When Pedro handed me his "pistolie" I said, "Now, don't get lost; keep in sight of the wagons." He said he would. The antelopes were plentiful, indeed, along the route we were going; and off he went.
A few days before we moved, I had gone up Wolf creek about six miles from camp, this being very near the head of it, and while there I came across an abandoned Arapaho camp. The Indians had left it so suddenly the summer before—that being the summer of the Indian War of 1874, when they received such a severe punishment from the hunters near the Adobe Walls,—that they did not take time to move all their effects, and the camp for half a mile up and down the creek was strewn with tin cups, plates, stew-pans, camp-kettles or brass kettles, and several Dutch ovens, besides axes and hoes. I picked up one of these brass kettles and took it to camp.
We had been cooking our dried apples in a black sheet-iron kettle, and the apple-sauce had a dark, grimy look. I had a vivid recollection of a beautiful well-polished brass kettle that my mother used to cook fruit in, and in which she made fine preserves; but my observation went no farther. Now I thought we will cook our dried apples in this and our sauce will retain its natural dried-fruit color.
It so happened that the evening before we moved we cooked a kettle of dried apples and set them to one side with a lid over them. They were not thought of at the morning meal, nor until we were packing up to move camp. On this particular day I hauled the entire mess-kit. There was a five-gallon keg of water in each wagon, and when all was ready we pulled out of camp, Charlie and Jimmie in the lead.