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The only thing in the world McCabe was afraid of was an Indian, of which I shall write later. Though small in size, McCabe would fight a man twice his size, and always give a good account of himself. His consuming passion was gambling, and when he struck town he invariably lost everything he had at the card table. He worked for me, off and on, for three years, and was with me at the fight at Adobe Walls.

During the time McCabe was with my outfit the two of us got along amicably, save when he would imagine that the world was against him, whereupon in a great huff he would quit, draw all his pay, and strike out for the nearest town – and its first gambling house within his reach. There he would remain until his last dollar was gone. Some fine morning McCabe would show up with beaming face and good-natured blarney, take his old job, and work even better than before.

Once he had been sulking for almost a week and had not spoken to a man in camp. When we started hunting, we decided to pull out and leave him at the ranch alone, which we did. After making our kill of buffaloes, we started back. When we got in sight of the ranch we were astonished at seeing McCabe dancing on a dry buffalo robe stretched on the ground. He was giving all the fancy steps and dancing as if a full orchestra were playing. Upon seeing us, he stopped dancing, and seemed chagrined. He had been entertaining himself. His conduct was rather laughable.

I rarely ever made a full settlement with McCabe, as he preferred to draw his pay in installments. I paid him fifty dollars a month. Sometimes he would have several hundred dollars ahead, and again he would be considerably overdrawn. Finally, he decided he would quit for good. Getting down to the job of a settlement, I carefully figured each item and found that just two dollars were due him, whereupon he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "It beats the devil that a man should work three long years and get just two dollars." He went away in good humor, and we were always warm friends.

Finn and I were together until the next fall. He then took a notion to go back east and visit his folks, whom he had not seen since the Civil War. He was a frugal man, and did not smoke, chew tobacco nor drink whisky. His share of the year's work amounted to $5,000, which gave him a pretty good stake. He went to Rochester, New York, invested his money and was soon doing a profitable business. Several years afterwards he wrote to me saying that he longed to come back to the Plains country and its free life, but he never came.

Before Finn went away we had taken into partnership a man named Jack Callahan, who had been a Government wagonmaster at Fort Hays. Jack never saw the dark side of things, and was a delightful companion. During the winter of 1871 Jack and I were hunting on the headwaters of Pawnee Fork, drifting back and forth from there to Smoky Hill and Walnut Creek and their tributaries. Our permanent camp was on Hackberry Creek, a branch of Pawnee Fork. Along in November we had one of the worst blizzards I ever saw. It was this terrible storm that caught a wagon train loaded with cordwood for Hays City. This was Snuffer's bull train. All the cattle froze to death. The men were in a frightful condition when found. The outfit had been to Camp Supply with freight, and on the return trip had loaded up with cordwood on Walnut Creek.

The storm struck them just as they went into camp for the night, after the stock had been turned loose to graze. When the storm broke, every man turned out to help hold the stock, and many of them were soon lost in the blinding swirl. One man, the cook, managed to find his way back to camp; he was found dead in his wagon, frozen stiff. Where he had tried to make a fire in the bottom of the wagon could be plainly seen. He had burned the endgate in his vain efforts. The wind blew with such terrific force that the fire was blown away in all directions. Though surrounded with enormous quantities of wood, all within easy reach, the poor fellow perished for want of fire.

There was hardly a man in this ill-fated, outfit who did not suffer the loss of a hand, a foot, or a limb. The men were camped in Five Mile Hollow, five miles from Hays City, and when news of the affair reached town next day, all the citizens turned out to search for the missing men, gathering them up and taking them to the hospital at Hays City. Some of the bewildered men wandered to my road-ranch, where Billy Reynolds was in charge, and there found shelter and protection from the storm.

A few days after the storm had abated I decided to make a trip to Hays City, and bring back supplies for the outfit, so I hooked four mules to a wagon and hitched my saddle horse to the side. I rarely ever went out on the road without my saddle horse. The mules seemed to be more contented when accompanied by a horse, and in case of trouble I stood a better show of getting away on horseback.

Our camp was on Hackberry, and I went prepared to stay all night with Reynolds at the road-ranch, the first night out. When I got there I found the place deserted. I could not imagine why Reynolds was not there and did not learn the reason until I reached Hays, driving there that night. I saw Snuffer's wagons corralled at Five Mile Hollow when I passed that place, but heard nothing of what had happened until I got to Hays. Here I learned the no less surprising news that Reynolds had sold everything at the road-ranch and had skipped the country.

The day after I reached town the express agent came into the hotel office where I was stopping and asked if a man could be found who would take a load of express to Fort Dodge or Camp Supply, saying that there was a lot of express for both places. As I had a good team, and there was no great need of my hurrying back to headquarters, I told him I would go. I also wanted to look that country over for buffaloes.

I loaded and started for Fort Dodge with fifteen hundred pounds of express, making Walnut Creek the first night and staying at a road-ranch run by Johnny Quinn, afterwards killed at that place. The weather was bitter cold when I started next morning, and by 10 o'clock it was spitting snow and getting colder every minute. I walked part of the time to keep warm. My load was bulky rather than heavy. I felt the cold driving into my very bones, and realized my danger. I was determined that I would not permit myself to sink into drowsiness, as this meant death. Reaching a long divide, I dropped down the slope with my mules in a gallop, and luckily was soon in sight of a road-ranch kept by John O'Loughlin. I was scarcely able to speak when I drove up and found half a dozen men coming to meet me, all eager to hear the news from town, whatever it might be. In answer to their questions I merely shook my head. My jaws were set like a vice. I could not speak a word. They saw instantly my condition. Running into the dugout they began piling wood into the fireplace, and the room was soon as hot as an oven. I thawed gradually, burning like a live coal one moment and shivering the next as if I had a fit of ague. This was my first experience with killing cold. In later days, after I became a Government scout, I had many similar experiences. I once made a ride with dispatches, and became so stiff with cold by the time I had reached the end of my journey that I could not dismount from my horse – I simply let go and fell off.

In the Pawnee Fork and Saw Log country I had seen lots of buffaloes, a sight which always held me with endless fascination. When I got to Fort Dodge the third night out I heard that the buffaloes had drifted in by thousands during the blizzard, and that the garrisons had to fire a piece of artillery to keep them from breaking down the buildings and corrals.

Next day I mounted my horse and struck off up the Arkansas to look over the country, traveling up the valley for about thirty-five miles. There had certainly been an enormous number of buffaloes in the country. I could see where the grass had been flattened and the willow thickets cropped close by the tired and hungry animals. In every direction could be seen the spots where the buffaloes had bedded down for the night. But now there was not a buffalo in sight.

Lured on by the hope of catching sight of the vast multitude that had passed that way, I kept on up the valley, but without success. Then I determined to proceed to the Plains, which I did. Riding to a high point I turned my eyes across the plains. I held my breath in my astonishment at the wonderful sight. As far as I could see there was a solid mass of buffalo, quietly grazing on the curly mesquite, now brown with winter. At no other time in my life did I ever see such a vast number of buffaloes. For miles in every direction the country was alive with them.

At this point I want to say that in all my experience in the buffalo country I never saw one die of old age and exhaustion, and can remember seeing only one "on the lift" – that is, in a situation where he could go no further. This one, an old bull, had got fast in a bog on the Canadian, and was unable to get out. Riding up to him, I threw my lariat over his head, after I had given my lariat a hitch over the horn of my saddle, and pulled the old fellow to firm ground. I left him grazing contentedly on the bank. The buffalo was a hardy animal, and though they often got very thin during a hard winter, yet they never became so thin and starved as to go off their feet like cattle.

I returned to Fort Dodge fully satisfied with my day's ride, and next day started on my return trip to Fort Hays. By the time I reached Fort Hays, a considerable number of hunters had been driven in by the storm. I told them of the black ocean of buffaloes I had seen northwest of Fort Dodge, which was good news to them, and set every man to overhauling his outfit.

I was impatient to reach my camp, so I loaded up with supplies and pulled out. I found the boys in good shape and glad to see me. Next day we made a scout out west of Hackberry, and found thousands of buffaloes. It was plain that the big herd had drifted a long way during the blizzard, and had been as far south as the Arkansas. When the weather moderated they worked back to their old range.

Along in May, 1872, we moved our camp from Hackberry to a point north of the Kansas Pacific railroad.

While in camp on Hackberry I met with an experience which rarely ever happened to me – I got completely lost, so badly that I had no idea of direction. Perkins and I had been out all day killing and skinning buffaloes. We had worked late, and it had grown cloudy and dark when we started for camp. Both were afoot. In moving from each fallen buffalo to another we had wandered further than we suspected. Each thought camp was in a different direction. So positive was Perkins that he was right that I followed him for a time.

I was relying mostly upon the direction of the buffalo trails and when I found that we were crossing them instead of following them, I was convinced that we had lost our bearings. I called Perkin's attention to the trails. He insisted that he was going in the right direction. Perkins was a windy story-teller, and was relating a war tale. I disliked to interrupt him. Finally, however, I said that unless the wind had changed we were certainly going in the wrong direction.

"Oh, the wind has changed," he replied: "I knew it would this morning."

About this time we reached the head of a draw, on which we thought our camp was situated. At that moment the clouds drifted from the face of the moon, and we saw a bunch of buffaloes that had bedded down for the night. This convinced me that Perkins was "going it wild," as I was sure that buffalo would not stay that close to our camp.

Rovers that we were, with sails turned for every wind, we decided to kill some of the buffaloes, as they would be conveniently at hand, for skinning next morning, and we shot five or six.

Pursuing our way down the draw, I was soon positive that we were lost. Perkins put up a lively argument to prove that he was not mistaken. When we reached another bunch of buffaloes that had bedded, Perkins threw up the sponge. Four bulls were lying together. We blazed into them, made a warm bed of two hides, with the hair turned inside, and made a dry camp for the night. We slept as warm as if we were in a feather bed, though the night was cold.

In after years I thought many times of that night on the Plains. Of how tired we were, of how the wind whistled past us, of how the cold seemed to come down out of the sky, heavy and chill, and of how icily the moon shone as she sailed westward. Save for the occasional howling of wolves and coyotes, the night was supernaturally silent. It was the stillness of the primeval solitude. It was the stuff that makes a man in a warm bed under a roof feel like getting up to saddle his horse and ride away to this Land of Nowhere. Once in the blood, it can never be lost. Home-sickness for the Plains and their free, open life stings like a hornet.

Perkins and I slept late next morning. The sun was shining in my face when I heard something scratching and clawing on the hide with which we were covered. There were lots of skunks in the country, and lately several men had been bitten by them. I thought of skunks, of which I stood in dread, as I would have preferred being bitten by a rattlesnake.

Bracing myself, I kicked the hide with all my might, to throw it as far as possible from both of us. Instead of a skunk, I was astonished to see a big eagle that had been trying to get his breakfast by picking the meat off the fresh hide. That eagle was so badly scared that I am sure he must have had an attack of heart failure. He flopped around before he could get up enough steam to take wing, and even then he hovered in the air as if uncertain which way to fly. I could have killed him with the butt of my gun. I had no wish to do this, however, and watched him recover his wits and soar away.

I do not believe that I exaggerate when I say that Perkins jumped five feet into the air when I kicked off the buffalo hide. He told me that he was sure Indians had nailed us, and that his scalp-lock twitched all day.

Coming out of the draw where we had made our bed, we ascended a high point and scanned the surrounding country, hoping to locate our camp. Nothing looked familiar to us. We struck out in the direction we thought camp ought to be. We walked until nearly night before we got back to camp.

By noon I was growing ravenously hungry. I suggested to Perkins that we kill a buffalo and broil some of the meat. We shot a 2-year-old heifer, and soon had a hump steak sizzling on the fire. No meal ever gave me greater satisfaction, though we had no salt or bread.

We were fagged and footsore when we reached camp. James Donnelly, the man we had left in camp, had given us up as dead, confident that we had been killed by Indians. He had packed the outfit, harnessed the mules and was just at the point of pulling out for Hays City when we hailed him. We would have been left in bad shape had he gone. During the morning a band of twelve or fifteen Indians had passed in sight of camp, and as we had been missing two days and one night, Donnelly naturally concluded that the Indians had killed us. After he saw the Indians he made up his mind that the best thing for him to do was to leave as quickly as possible for the Fort.

During the summer of 1872 we hunted along the Saline and Solomon, frequently encountering small bands of Indians. Generally, they were going north or south, and though they were supposed to be friendly, we watched them closely. Occasionally, we heard of a hunter being killed, but this did not bother us, so long as we were not molested. Sometimes, Indians came into our camp. They were always hungry. We always fed them. They love sugar and coffee, and for either were willing to trade anything they had. The Kiowas were especially fond of sugar. The liking for sweet things was not peculiar to the white man.

CHAPTER V

We started south to the Arkansas River in the fall of 1872, and when we got to where Dodge City now stands, we found the first buildings under construction. None of us dreamed of the reputation that was to come to that town through its gun men. There were only a few houses at Dodge. I remember that the Cox house, the first hotel, was open. Deciding to "put on airs," we went to the hotel for dinner. Our bill of fare was pork and beans, black coffee, bread and pepper sauce, especially pepper sauce, for which we paid seventy-five cents. We could have beat it, hands down, in our own camp. I can recall the names of a number of the first business establishments:

• Wright & Company ("Bob" Wright), general supply store.

• Zimmerman's hardware, gun and ammunition store.

• McCart & Fringer, drug store. Fringer afterwards was judge of Ford county court.

• Kelly & Beaty, saloon. Kelly was a jolly, good-natured man, and was always popular. He was always called "Dog" Kelly.

• Murray & Waters, saloon.

• Beeson & Harris, saloon.

• Hoover's saloon.

The buildings were mostly box affairs, and built in the quickest possible way. But a palace does not make happiness, and I am sure that in the rough, frontier towns of those days there was lots of contentment and good cheer in the rudest shacks. The wind and the snow came in at the cracks in winter, and in summer the rain beat through and the red dust swirled along the floor, but we paid little attention to such things. Our skin was tough and we had many things to occupy our time. We were constantly in the open air, which hardened us until we suffered scarcely any annoyance from wind or weather, such as would have been looked upon as hardships not to be endured, by men living cooped up in cities, where there is rarely a chance to fill one's lungs with fresh air, and where heaviest clothing cannot compensate for lack of physical exercise. It is possible by exposure for men to toughen their skin and their bodies, just as they can toughen their hands. The Indian is a good example of this fact.

At this time Dodge City was the terminus of the Santa Fe railroad. The railroad company was still grading, and had moved as far west as the State line, at Granada, Kas., where building stopped for about a year. Dodge City sprang up like a mushroom. Buildings went up day and night, and in a month's time the first dozen houses had been increased to a small town.

Like moths drawn by the flame of a lamp, a picturesque lot of men gathered at Dodge. Practically all of them were looking for adventure and excitement, rather than for opportunities to become preachers, lawyers or merchants. They came from the border towns that dotted like beads that western fringe of civilization. Dodge City belonged mostly to the under-world in those days, and its ways were the ways of men and women who stayed up all night and slept all day. Buffalo-hunters, railroad graders, gamblers, dance hall actors and dancers and that nondescript class that lived without doing any kind of work predominated. But there were good men and women in Dodge, and as in most genuine American communities, they finally won out, despite its revelries and dissipations. The professional gun man that gave Dodge most of its reputation, especially in eastern States, did not ply his business as a business until later years.

Money was plentiful in those days. Anybody could get money, and there was no excuse for being "broke." Business thrived, and some of the stores could supply a man with practically anything he needed. The men of Dodge City spent their money as quickly as they made it, so lots of money was constantly in circulation. Whisky-drinking was a pastime or diversion in which few men did not indulge. It was true, however, that some of Dodge City's most famous characters never drank a drop of intoxicating liquors. They did not dare do it. They belonged to the class known as "killers." To get drunk or to drink enough whisky to make the nerves unsteady meant death for such men, as the enemy was always lying in wait for them.

I cannot boast of having been an altogether perfect man in my conduct in those wild, free days, but there was two popular forms of amusement in which I did not indulge – dancing and gambling. I never bet a nickel on cards nor gambled in any form in my life though I saw all these things going on every night when I was in a border town, especially at Dodge. Why I did not, rather than the mere fact that I did not dance or gamble, always seemed to me to be of most interest. My only answer would be that this sort of thing did not appeal to me, and this was sufficient beyond any moral reason for my conduct.

As a class, the early population of Dodge was free-hearted and would divide the last dollar with a friend or a stranger in distress. The people stood by each other in all emergencies. Nobody thought of locking his door at night.

When the Santa Fe's construction was stopped at Granada, hundreds of men were thrown out of employment, and found it necessary to make some kind of shift for work, or leave the country. Right here is where the rapid extermination of the buffalo began. All of these men who could rustle a team and a wagon and get hold of an outfit went out on the Plains to kill buffalo. During the fall and winter of 1872 and 1873 there were more hunters in the country than ever before or afterwards. This was the beginning of the high tide of buffalo-hunting, and buffalo fell by thousands. More were killed that season than in all subsequent seasons combined. I feel safe in saying that 75,000 buffaloes were killed within 60 or 75 miles of Dodge City during that time. The noise of the guns of the hunters could be heard on all sides, rumbling and booming hour after hour, as if a heavy battle were being fought. There was a line of camps all the way from Dodge City to Granada.

During all this time, and since 1871 Jack Callahan and I had worked together. Perkins and Donnelly were still with us. "Cranky" McCabe, his good humor having revived, came back to work for me. A single night at the card table in Dodge City generally wound up McCabe's ball of yarn, and at once he was ready to return to the buffalo range and without complaint. Apparently, there was something he had to get out of his system, and after he had been purged he was ready to resume his old ways. There was not a lazy bone in his body, and I never had a better hand. I was very much attached to Jack Callahan. He was always in good humor, which is a fine quality for a man to have in a hunting camp. A bad temper can spoil the pleasure of an entire camp. Some mornings we would sleep late. When the sun got in his eyes, Jack would jump up, exclaiming "By George, this will never do! It will never buy my girl a dress nor pay for the one she has."

After we had been at Dodge City a few days, taking in the sights, we grew tired of loafing, and decided to strike out and go to new hunting grounds. So we went up the Arkansas River, along the north side, to what was known as Nine Mile Ridge, where we crossed to the south side of the river.

The increasing numbers and destructiveness of the buffalo-hunters had been making the Plains Indians more and more hostile. The danger to hunters was increasing day by day. All that region south of the Arkansas was forbidden ground, the Indians insisting that the white men should obey the terms of the Medicine Lodge treaty. If the killing of the buffaloes should continue unabated, the Indians would soon be facing starvation; at least, their old freedom would be at an end, as they could no longer roam the country at will, confident of finding meat in abundance wherever they might go.

The Arkansas was called the "dead line," south of which no hunter should go. The river was patrolled at intervals by Government troops, as a feeble indication that the Medicine Lodge treaty had not been forgotten, but their vigilance was so lax that there was no difficulty in crossing back and forth without detection. The danger of attack by Indians was a far more potent obstacle to the buffalo-hunter, but as buffaloes grew fewer in number and the price of hides advanced, even this did not deter hardy hunters from undertaking forays into the forbidden country. The troops were supposed to prevent the passing of the Indians to the north side of the river. This was another scheme that failed to work.

We gazed longingly across the sandy wastes that marked the course of the Arkansas. The oftener we looked the more eager we became to tempt fate. Even the sky looked more inviting in that direction, and often after a flurry of cold weather the wind from the south was mild, balmy and inviting. As a matter of fact, the possible danger of encountering hostile Indians added spice to the temptation.

So we crossed over. Finding a pleasant stretch of bottom land, where the grass grew tall and thick, we cut and stacked a lot of prairie hay for our teams and saddle horses. The grass waved above our horses' backs as we rode along. Later, we found Indians too numerous in this vicinity for us to devote much time to hunting and we abandoned this camp.

Before we made the change, however, Callahan and I, both well mounted, and followed by one man in a light wagon, started southward on a scouting trip, intending to be gone several days. We wanted to feel out the country and locate the buffalo herds.

When we reached Crooked Creek, we ran smack into a bunch of Indians, and had a skirmish with them. The Indians could not speak English. This did not prevent our understanding them. Their old chief motioned to us to go northward. That was a long time ago, yet I remember clearly the appearance of this old warrior. Noticeably, fastened under the skin of his left cheek he wore a long, brilliant feather. All the warriors were painted red and yellow. We believed, however, that we were able to take care of ourselves, and continued on our way. Further down the creek, we struck another band of hostiles. This was rather too much of the same thing, and we decided that if we valued our scalps we had better pull out.

We turned round and headed for camp, missing it about three miles in the darkness, and going into camp for the night in the enemy's country. Next morning we got back in safety, and called all hands round to discuss the situation. Plainly, to stay south of the Arkansas meant putting in more time fighting Indians than in hunting buffaloes.

But buffaloes had begun coming in by thousands, so we agreed to remain two or three days and make as big a kill as possible. Hunting was good, and a week had slipped by. The hides were green, which forced us to linger until they were dry. Not only were hides more easily handled when dry, but they made lighter loads.

About the ninth day, we found ourselves running short of meat. A bunch of buffaloes were grazing about two miles distant. Mounting my horse, I told the boys that I would ride out and kill two good ones for meat. I was so well acquainted with the ways of buffaloes that I could judge quickly by their actions whether they would run or stand when approached. I saw that these were getting ready to run.

This fact was a plausible hint that Indians were moving through the country. My own experience and the testimony of other hunters convinced me that nothing causes greater alarm among buffaloes than the scent or odor of Indians, a peculiarity easily distinguished by a white man's nostrils. When Indian hunting parties went on the buffalo grounds to get their winter's supply of meat, the herds were soon in great commotion, making it difficult for the white hunter to do his killing at a "stand." Strange as it may seem, if there were no Indians moving among the buffaloes, the latter would pay scarcely any attention to white hunters, even though the big buffalo guns were booming from sunrise to sunset.

Upon nearing the buffaloes as closely as I thought expedient, I dismounted and began crawling. Picking out a young bull, I turned loose with my big "50" gun. The herd stampeded at the first crack, and raised such a dust that I could distinguish nothing. I fired as rapidly as I could pull the trigger at the indistinguishable mass, and was lucky enough to bring down six or seven before the herd was out of range.

This fusillade from my gun set things moving in camp, where the boys jumped to the conclusion that I had been attacked by Indians. To add to the excitement a herd of about fifty antelopes appeared on a hill perhaps half a mile from camp. The swiftly running animals would traverse a wide circle and dash again to the top of the hill, where they would stand rigidly attentive gazing in my direction. The excited imagination of the boys in camp soon transformed these harmless creatures into mounted Indians. They had not the slightest doubt of my having been killed and scalped, my body left weltering in its own blood, and speared and arrowed until it resembled a sieve.

When I rode into camp a few minutes later, I found everything ready for flight and battle. All the fighting guns were conveniently at hand, and all the camp equipment was loaded on the wagon. The boys were just at the point of pulling out, but had lingered a moment to debate whether they should try to recover my dead body or whoop her up for Dodge City.

Jack Callahan was declaring that it would be wrong to go away without being sure that I was dead. While this discussion was under way each man was as busy as a coon in a hen roost. McCabe had been set at work priming a lot of shells, which were already loaded. In his excitement he held the primers in his left hand, asking all the while, "Where in thunder are those primers? I can't find a single one, yet I saw a lot of them only a moment ago. Unless we get these shells primed, we'll be in bad shape!"

McCabe was so nervous that the primers rattled in his shaking hand, without his seeing them. McCabe lived in mortal terror of Indians, though as brave as a lion under all other emergencies, a peculiarity I have seen in other men on the Plains. The scent or odor of the Indian affected some men as it did certain animals other than the buffalo. All kinds of game seemed to know when an Indian was around. A horse could be safely depended upon to give warning of the near approach of an Indian. I have had my horse run to and fro on his picket rope, manifesting the greatest alarm, apparently without cause, as I could see nothing. I never failed, however, to find later that an Indian had been close by.