That afternoon I turned my buffalo horse loose, permitting him to follow, or be driven along with the cavayard, in order that he might recuperate from the exhausting races of the forenoon. The following morning he was as good as ever, and I resolved to try another chase.
Having received some pertinent instructions from Captain Chiles, as to the modus operandi of killing buffalo on horseback at full speed, I mounted and sallied forth with him, the weather being ideal and the game abundant.
At the left of the road, in sight, thousands of buffalo were grazing in a vast plain, lower than the ridge down which we were riding. Opened up in our view was a scope of country to the southeast of us, a distance of ten miles. This plain was covered with them, all heading towards the northwest.
At the outset I was more fortunate than on the previous day, for when I had gotten up close to them I found in front of me cows and calves, young things of one or two years old. Singling out a fat young cow, distinguished by her glossy coat of hair, I forced my horse right up against her and brought her down at the second shot. I pulled rein, stopping my horse as suddenly as was possible at the breakneck speed at which he was going, and in another moment the herd had spread out, and I was completely surrounded by the rushing mass of animals which my attack had set in motion.
The air was so clouded with dust that I could hardly see more than twenty yards from where I was standing, near the carcass of the cow I had killed. There was danger of being run over by them, but they separated as they approached, passing on either side of me, a few yards distant. After a while the rushing crowd thinned, and up rode Captain Chiles exclaiming: “Why don’t you kill another?”
Fifty yards from us they were rushing by, all in the same direction. I again dashed into the midst of them, pressing my horse in pursuit of another young cow. She shot ahead of everything, increasing her speed so that I could hardly keep sight of her. While thus running at full speed my horse struck a calf with his breast, knocking the calf down flat, and almost throwing himself also. I pulled up as quickly as possible, turned around and shot the prostrate calf before it could get up. So I had two dead in, say twenty minutes. After this day’s experience I had no trouble in killing all the buffalo we needed for our own consumption. For a week or ten days they were hardly out of sight. We found them as far west as Pawnee Rock. All told, I killed about twenty on the journey out and back. A good steak, cut from the loin of a buffalo cow, broiled on the coals with a thin slice of bacon attached to it to improve its flavor, was “good eating,” and I soon became an accomplished broiler.
IV.
Companions of Voyage.
Before reaching Pawnee Rock we overtook a train of thirty wagons belonging to the leading freighters of the West, Majors, Russell & Waddell, with which we traveled to Fort Union, their freight being consigned to that post. This train had thirty wagons, built, I believe, in Philadelphia, with heavy iron axles and spindles, which seemed superior to any others I had seen on the prairies. Hagan was wagonmaster and Hines his assistant. The former was a sandy-haired man, who rode a large bay mule, a drowsy animal with immense lop ears that moved back and forth as he walked. This ungainly mule, I found out, in a day or two afterwards, had his good points. He could run as fast and get up as close to a buffalo as any horse in either outfit.
Notwithstanding Hagan’s generally uncouth appearance, he was a man of sterling worth and a capital hand at killing buffalo. Subsequently we joined in many chases, and I found him an agreeable companion. On the rear end of each of the wagons in Hagan’s train there was pasted a set of printed rules for the government of the employees in the service of Majors, Russell & Waddell. Both liquor and profanity were absolutely prohibited, but of the strict enforcement of the rules I cannot speak.
While riding in advance of the train, in company with Captain Chiles, we saw our Mexican friend, whose acquaintance we had formed at Westport, the master of his own train, galloping toward us, with a buffalo cow following close behind his horse. As was his habit, he had attacked the animal with his spear, stabbing her until she became infuriated so that she turned on him and was following him; it occurred to me she was pressing him a little too closely to be agreeable. We rode rapidly toward him, and as we were drawing near the cow became so exhausted by loss of blood that she stopped still, when Captain Chiles rode up and gave her a broadside with his shotgun, which finished her.