“MEN, THEY ARE INDIANS!”
In a few minutes our anxiety was relieved when these horsemen came near enough for us to see that they were white men, not Indians, and, after all, they proved to be the company of artillery, mounted on some Indian horses that had lately been captured from the Cheyennes. Under the circumstances it was not at all strange that we had mistaken them for hostile Indians.
The next morning after this the wagonmasters of these several trains came forward as usual, and we set out to travel in advance of the trains, hoping to find buffalo as we had again reached their accustomed range.
I had the only real good buffalo horse in the company, but his speed and strength we found considerably lessened and impaired by the long journey. In discussing the prospects of finding buffalo, and of killing one for a supply of fresh meat, which we were all very eager again to get, Hines, an assistant wagonmaster of one of the trains, suggested to me that I should use his pair of heavy Colt’s army revolvers, which, he said, carried a heavier ball and were more effective in killing buffalo than mine. Although I was somewhat doubtful, I exchanged with him. We had ridden forward but a few miles when we descried a herd of some twenty buffalo, in the distance. The understanding being that I was to lead off in this chase, I put spurs to my horse, the others following. There were several young cows in the band, one of which I selected, and pressed my horse forwards. In a few moments we were going at a furious rate of speed, and my prospect of success was good, but just as I was leaning forward, with pistol in my right hand, in the act of shooting the cow, the stirrup leather of my saddle suddenly broke, almost precipitating me headlong to the ground, but I escaped falling by catching around the horse’s neck with my left arm; the heavy pistol fell to the ground. While I was preparing to mend the stirrup leather, having dismounted for that purpose, the other men of the party rode up, the buffalo, meanwhile, having run entirely out of sight.
When I had gotten the stirrup repaired, Captain Chiles, noticing that I was a good deal shaken up and unnerved by the occurrence, said that I would better let him have my horse and pistols, which I readily gave up to him, knowing that there was no man on the plains who excelled him in a buffalo chase or one more sure to provide fresh meat. So he mounted my horse, and I got upon his mule, and we all started off in the direction the buffalo had gone. We had by that time reached a section of rolling country on the “cut-off” across the bend of the Arkansas, lying in great ridges, with valleys intervening. As we got to the top of one of these ridges Captain Chiles, who was in front, exclaimed: “Look yonder at that band of elk!”
There they were, perhaps two hundred of them, grazing in a valley a mile distant. I immediately claimed my horse, for I did not want to miss the opportunity of killing an elk, but the captain merely laughed at me and started down toward the elk in a gallop. The elk, seeing him, were soon all in motion, running in a great mass, stirring up a cloud of dust, soon passing from our view around the point of the ridge on the farther side of the valley, Captain Chiles following them closely, the horse at full speed. After they had gotten out of sight of us we heard the report of his pistol, two or three times, and our entire party followed in his wake until we had reached the point, where we thought the firing had occurred. Finding neither Chiles nor any dead or wounded elk the men all, except Reece and I, refused to go further, and turned about towards the road. Reece, who was riding his big gray horse, and I, on the mule, continued riding in the direction we supposed Chiles had gone, until we had ridden perhaps four miles, when I began to feel a little uneasy, expressing a disinclination to go further, as I was riding a worn-out, leg-weary mule, with nothing but a belt pistol in the way of arms, and being in the neighborhood of hostile Indians. Reece said to me: “You remain here while I ride to the top of that high mound yonder,” pointing to a hill a mile farther on. “When I get there,” he said, “if then I can neither hear nor see anything of Chiles or the elk I will return here for you.”
Reece rode away. I remained alone for an hour or more—the danger of the situation made it appear much longer than it really was, no doubt—and finally I saw Reece and Chiles coming, greatly to my relief. They were in good spirits, and as they rode up Chiles said they had killed the biggest elk that ever ran on the plains, giving me an account of his capture in detail as we rode back.
XIII.
Captain Chiles’ Chase.
When Reece had got to the top of the mound he saw Captain Chiles, sitting on a horse, holding by a rope a huge bull elk. The elk stood in the bottom of a deep, narrow ditch, ten feet deep, with banks almost perpendicular, so steep that he was unable to get up them or out of the ditch to assail his captor. Captain Chiles, when he first caught up with the band of elk, had made an effort to kill one with the pistols, but for some reason he could only get the pistols to fire two of the charges, and with these two he only wounded a cow slightly, not enough to stop her from running. He kept after the band, all the while trying to get the revolver to fire, trying every chamber, but with no success. After he had kept up the chase for two or three miles the large bull elk, being very fat, got too tired to keep up with the band, but trotted along behind, in fact, so far exhausted that Chiles could keep up with him with his horse in a trot. The captain despaired of being able to stop one with the pistols, and, finding a small lariat I had brought from the Kiowas as we went out, on my saddle, used for picketing my horse, resolved to try the plan of lassoing the big fellow.