Buffalo of the Great American Plains Part III

This is the third and final extract taken from Autobiography of a Pioneer, written by Floyd B. Small in 1916. The book records some of his experiences on the plains in various occupations. This extract concerns the hunt for the last 18 buffalo in Arapaho County, Colorado, in 1881.

“I was solicited on or about the 15th of November, 1881, by some acquaintances at McCook, Nebraska, to join them on a buffalo hunt. It was known that the game was getting very scarce, there not being more than two or three small bands of them left, and they were in the Sand Hills some eighty miles northwest and hard to get. I agreed to go, and provided myself with a saddle horse. It was generally known that there was no more pot-shooting the buffalo. If gotten at all it was done by running them on horseback and shooting on the run.

“Six men with four teams and wagons started, as I remember it, on the 17th day of November. We reached the headwaters of Chief Creek, in Colorado on the eve of the 20th, about eight miles west of the Nebraska state line, intending the next morning to go on horseback into the Sandhills in search of our game. We had not been in camp but a short time when a horseman came rushing in about famished for water. We were camped at a spring, the extreme headwaters of Chief Creek. The next water to be found north, northwest or northeast was the Platte River, sixty miles distant. 

“We struck up a conversation with the new arrival and told our business. He said that was his. I soon began to get shaky about us securing any buffalo if it took an outfit such as he was equipped with to get them. He looked over our guns and frankly told us we stood no show even if we sighted a bunch. He said his father, uncle and cousin were with him and would make the spring that evening; that they were driving in from Sand Point, Colorado, forty miles due west, and would have to make the spring in order to reach water. While waiting for his outfit to arrive we discussed the buffalo question. He told us his name was Brown, and their home was at Deertrail, Colorado, eighty-three miles east of Denver City, and that they had been killing buffalo for the Denver market for the last four Falls. The fathers were brothers, the two young men, Jim and Henry, cousins. He said that the horse he was then riding was then in his fourth year running buffalo. He certainly was a beauty. He told us that there was but one small bunch of buffalo left, and that they were northwest of our camp somewhere. He also stated that they had jumped a bunch the day before of fifteen and got them all. His party had now arrived. We found them very sociable; all hands chatted, fried and ate buffalo meat and spent a very pleasant evening, the two young men busying themselves all evening running slugs and loading cartridges.

“They were simply young cannons. They were the “Browning rifle,” .38-45, swedged ball; the cartridge when loaded with the slug was five inches in length and they burnt one hundred and seventy grains of powder.1 Our firearms were toy pistols compared to theirs. When our party repaired to our own camp that night we were of the opinion that our chances for buffalo meat were very slim. For at any rate, if there were buffalo anywhere near they would find them before we could, and of course that would put the kibosh on any chance we might have had. One of the older men sliced off a liberal hunk of buffalo meat and tendered it to our party for our breakfast, and with the exception of this we made up our minds we would get no more buffalo meat. All hands turned in feeling pretty blue.

“About three o’clock the next morning we heard the Brown camp astir and we all started to shuffle out. I was starting a fire when one of the older men came over and told me the two boys wanted to see me. I went over and asked what assistance I could be to them. They asked me if I were in charge of our party. I answered in the negative; that no particular one was in charge. They said then that they would make me a proposition and if I saw fit to consult my party, and they would agree to it, we stood a chance to load our wagon that day with buffalo meat. I told them to fire away, for meat was what we wanted. They said they expected to start this bunch of buffalo that was now northwest of us that forenoon and if we cared to drive along with their fathers, and all hands help skin and take care of the meat and hides, providing they did jump them, we could have the front quarters and that they would sell us our choice of robes at three dollars and fifty cents each.

“My party accepted and were glad of the opportunity. At break of day we were on our way, provided with two five-gallon kegs of water. The two cousins had already gone. We drove in a northwest direction until about eight o’clock, possibly covering ten miles, when we discovered two horsemen some three miles to the north coming in our direction, their horses extending themselves to the limit. The two elderly Browns were driving in the lead of our teams. They halted and passed word along that that was the boys coming, and that they had sighted the buffalo and were coming to the wagon to relieve their horses of all unnecessary weight before starting the chase. 

“The two boys came on up and dismounted, stating they they had sighted the buffalo, which were now about four miles due north of us. They stripped their saddles, one even took off his horse’s bridle, not a thing on him. He was the horse that had put in four Falls chasing buffalo; he knew his business and didn’t need any bridle. The boys stripped to their shirts, overalls and socks, buckled on their cartridge belts, full with cartridges, filled their pockets, gave orders for the caravan to drive a northwest direction in a walk for about half a mile and then drive as fast as possible, until we intersected or saw the chase, as they were going to start the buffalo so as to run them west, and thus bring themselves that much nearer their headquarters at Sand Point, now about thirty-five miles west. 

“The situation now becomes interesting. The two cousins, Jim and Henry, were both large men, weighing anywhere from one hundred and seventy-five to one hundred and ninety pounds, Jim being the taller of the two, and the one that rode the trained sorrel horse. They took a swallow of water, grabbed their guns, sprang to the backs of their horses and were gone. The chase was now on. We drove as directed. Possibly thirty-five minutes had elapsed when we came upon a crest in the prairie from which there was no obstruction whatever as far north and west as the eye could see. We had just gotten nicely on top of this crest when someone hollered, “There they come,” and on looking north not over one-eighth of a mile we saw the buffalo just coming over the crest, running like scared coyotes. They had just gotten nicely down on the level plain, not running in a bunch, but in a letter V, as the wild goose flies, and headed straight west, when Jim Brown, on the sorrel horse, hove in sight. If that wasn’t a racehorse I never have seen one. He was doing all that was in him, carrying some two hundred and ten or fifteen pounds of weight. The gun carried weighed twenty-seven pounds.2 When he had gotten within about a quarter of a mile of the buffalo he seemed to stop all at once. His rider hit the ground, standing at the horse’s head, and fired at the retreating buffalo three times.

“While this was going on, Henry Brown passed them on the brown mare with all the speed she could muster, and she could run a little herself. Jim mounted his horse and was gone again like a shot, soon passing Henry, who was now dismounted and firing. We could not have been in a more advantageous position to view what was going on. From the first fire directed on them from Jim’s gun we saw one buffalo lag, reel and fall. We next noticed one suddenly break off to itself, taking short jumps, finally a header, his heels going in the air. It got up, took another tumble or two and was down for the count, this taking place during the fire from Henry’s gun. We noticed another lag, sit down, stick its nose heavenward, reel over backward and fall. Henry, on the brown mare, was going again now, and Jim off firing, and thus they disappeared beyond where we could distinguish them. We, with the wagon, set to skinning. We could hear those monstrous guns in the distance for an hour or so, then nothing more could be heard. We were skinning our fifth buffalo when a little excitement took place among us. We would leave our team stand a short distance off while we were dressing a carcass; all hinds would be busy doing something. We heard a crash, and on looking up saw a big buffalo, bearing down on us some seventy-five yards away on the back track, swinging a hind leg. The horses had seen it and one of the teams belonging to my party had wheeled so suddenly they upset the wagon. Their driver ran to them, the balance of us made for the wagons and tried to whip the teams out of the way of that bull, which was now close upon us, and was as full of fight as an egg is of meat. That poor fellow trying to hold his team with the bull not fifty feet from him, certainly made as much noise in as short a time as I have ever heard one man make. He was between the devil and the deep sea. One of the Browns had gotten hold of his Winchester and built up such a smoke and fire about the old bull that he bore off to the south. We all took a crack at him but could not stop him.

“Just then Jim Brown came back with a shell choked in his gun. He got his rod and knocked it out and threw in a loaded cartridge. The bull was now four hundred yards off and traveling quartering from us. Jim raised his gun and such an explosion! The old bull simply squashed right in his tracks. Several of us went out to where he was. He was shot through both shoulders and couldn’t start to get up, but mad? – yes, he was mad. He would shoot his old black tongue out at us, bellow and pound his head on the ground. Young Brown walked up and kicked him on the snout. It was really pitiful to see his helplessness, as bad as he wanted to fight. He was dispatched by a shot in the head, and another old-timer of many years on the plains, met his Waterloo.

“I heard one of the fathers ask Jim how many they had gotten. He said, “I counted five as I came back, and Henry was still after them, but that they scattered out badly.” I supposed this was all, as we were now skinning our seventh buffalo, but it was not.

“When Jim came back and dismounted, his horse immediately laid down, and when we finished skinning there and were ready to move on to the next carcass it took four men to get him upon his feet. He was the stiffest thing I have ever seen on four legs. He had been perfectly white with foam from his long and arduous chase; it had dried on him and he was now a white horse instead of a sorrel. This performance had to be repeated at each stop. Henry Brown came back in a couple of hours after Jim did and was asked how many he had counted. He said there were four down and an old bull was still on his feet, but would soon take a tumble. He was asked how many got away, and he said, “None.” They had gotten them all. We were now finishing dressing our thirteenth buffalo, four more down and the old bull made eighteen in the band. We found and skinned them all. There were twelve front quarters left on the plains. We could not haul them. Our four wagons were loaded to the teams’ capacity. Two-thirds of a buffalo’s weight is on his forelegs. The hump is largely accountable for this. One front quarter of a buffalo will weigh as much as the two hind-quarters. The Browns took all hind-quarters, and hides and the heads of the big bulls for mounting.

“They took seven bull heads that day and they were the last they ever had the opportunity to take, for this concluded the destruction absolutely of the buffalo on the Great American Plains, on November 21st, 1881 in Arapaho County, Colorado, one hundred and seventy-five miles due east of Denver City.

“The chase covered a distance of about fifteen miles to where the last buffalo was skinned. We found ourselves now twenty miles in either direction from water. Not a drop of water was left for our selves and not a horse in the outfit had had a drink since before daylight that morning. It was now about four o’clock in the afternoon. The two horses that made the chase were in a pitiable condition; they had covered at least that day seventy-five miles. My party’s direction, of course, was to turn square about and travel east, but night being close upon us and heavily loaded, we concluded our safer plan was to stay with the Browns until we found water, which we did. Dark found us some fifteen miles yet off Sand Point. We lost the trail in the dark. Our caravan was brought to a halt. Jim Brown mounted the sorrel horse, was off like a bat in the dark, saying if he found Sand Point he would go up on the point and build a signal fire with sage-brush. In about two hours we discovered a fire. It had the appearance of being twenty-five miles away, and was ten. We pulled for it, firing a gun at intervals. 

“In about an hour we got an answer, and found that we were traveling in the wrong direction. Turning square to our left, still firing at intervals, we were piloted in by the answer. We reached camp at two o’clock in the morning. Two of my party had became so near famished for want of water, their tongues were swollen to twice their normal size. And what we found in the way of water was nothing more than a hole in the sand-bed about four feet deep. You couldn’t dip more than a quart at a time. We were until after daylight getting our sixteen head of horses watered. All hands rested the next day and night. The two elderly Browns had put out poison for coyotes. On leaving camp three days before they hunted about the prairie that day and found sixteen dead coyotes and took their scalps, for which Arapaho County at its county seat in Denver City, one hundred and sixty miles away, paid a bounty of three dollars each. This was a part of the spoils of their hunts. On the following morning we all broke camp, the Browns taking what they could haul in the two chases and pulling out for Deertrail to unload and return, leaving the balance of their meat and hides in a large tent, the meat spread out upon the hides, with burnt cartridges set about upon it and also placed around the tent. The wild animal is yet to be found that will approach anything smelling of burnt powder. We pulled out on a forty-mile drive to Chief Creek, our starting point and the nearest water on our return trip. Dark overtook us some ten miles yet to water; driving in the dark we unintentionally bore to the southeast and at about eleven o’clock that night we reached Black Wolf Creek, this being the south fork, and Chief Creek being the north fork of the north fork of the Republican River. The B & M Railroad was engaged at this time in the extending of the road from McCook, Nebraska to Denver City, Colorado. Its course followed the north fork of the Republican River to the head waters of Chief Creek, then in a northwestern direction across the high and dry plain, eighty-five miles to Brush Creek and to within a few miles of the Platte River. One of the buffalo killed in the chase above related had fallen on a grade stake that the engineer had placed some three weeks previous and had to be rolled over before dressing it, in order not to disturb the stake.

“To further establish the contention of the writer that 1,500,000 is not exaggerating the number of buffalo on the plains, as late as 1866, I wish to call the reader’s attention to the fact that for two years following the completion of the two first railroads passing through the Great Plains, that at every station there was a bone merchant who bought dry and bleached bones, paying from nine to eighteen dollars per ton, shipping them east to fertilizers and refineries, and that from Rays Station alone on the B & M, at the junction of Chief and Black Wolf, 145 carloads were shipped in the first eighteen months of its existence...” 

We conclude this series of articles extracted from Autobiography of a Pioneer, by Floyd B. Small, with a description of a freighter helping another freighter whose ox team wagons had stuck fast in a quagmire:

The Old-Time Freighter

“How supplies were obtained in the early days before the railroads were built; each settlement, town or mining camp received all their supplies by team and wagons excepting those located on the Missouri River, and they were a very small percentage. The ox, or in a more customary way of designating them, the bull teams, the mule and horse teams were also used, but the bull and mule teams predominated. The large horse is a poor rustler and could not adapt himself to the hardships and usages that the ox or mule could and for these reasons he was not extensively used, pack horses and burros being used to distribute to inaccessible points where teams could not go.

“Boise City, Idaho, for instance, was supplied with all its foreign commodities from its inception in the early 50’s up until the year 1883 by freight teams. The nearest railroad point was Kelton, Nevada, two hundred and forty miles. Freight rates between Boise and Kelton ran from $2.50 per hundred to $6.00, bulky goods commanding the higher rate.

“An ordinary freight outfit in those times consisted of from ten to twenty oxen or that many mules, from five to ten yoke of oxen or span of mules, as the case might be. These teams’ loads consisted of two heavy wagons covered with canvas, the rear wagon being coupled close to the lead or tongue wagon by a short tongue, and it was called the trail wagon. The lead wagon was built to carry from seven thousand to nine thousand pounds, the trailer less. One driver to the outfit. The heaviest animals were placed on the tongue and called the wheelers. The lightest yoke or span was used for the leaders, in either a mule or ox team. The driver rode the near wheeler using what was called a jerk line, running from his saddle through the hame ring on each near animal, to the bit in the near leader’s mouth, the off leader being jockeyed off by a jockey stick. It can be easily understood that wherever the near leader went he blazed the trail for the balance of the team. He got his instructions from the driver in the saddle on the near wheeler by a jerk of the line and the word “Gee” or “Haw,” as the case may be. He knew his business and the first thing he was taught was that he had better attend to it. If an animal in the team became careless he was spoken to sharply a time or two by calling his name. If the animal spoken to didn’t respond at once the team was stopped and I can assure you the next time his name was called he made chains rattle. The leaders were not required to help much with the load. Their duty was to carry the chains running the length of the team and in picking up the chain and holding when starting while the balance of the team were getting in a position to pull. I have seen a pair of leaders, both mule and oxen, pick up the chain and hang to it with every particle of strength they had for fully five minutes, till the driver gave the word to the balance of the team to start, which usually was something like this: “All ready; Get Up Tom, Prince, You Dave!” spoken loud and sharp with a slash or two of his whip.

“At one time I saw a bull team of eleven yoke stalled. They were pulling two wagons loaded with bullion for Blackfoot on the Utah Northern Railroad, loaded at a smelter at Ketchum on Big Wood River, Idaho. The driver had taken the Kelton Trail on leaving Belleview instead of the Blackfoot road. He noticed his mistake ten miles out and sought to cut across the Valley of Silver Creek and regain the Blackfoot route. He swung his team and headed northeast but didn’t go far till his lead wagon dropped through the sod, which was only supported by a quagmire. He dropped his trail wagon but the eleven yoke couldn’t start the one wagon. There was another bull team of twelve yoke in sight on the Kelton Trail, and the driver went and secured the other team to give him a pull. They were hitched on ahead of his eleven yoke, making twenty-three yoke of bulls in one string and not an animal that would weigh less than fourteen hundred pounds and up to eighteen hundred pounds. The driver who brought his team to pull the other out started the twenty-three yoke alone.

“There were forty-six oxen in all. The driver carried a whip with a four-foot stock and a twelve-foot lash, properly loaded with lead. This is what he did and said; he went forward to his leaders, started down the line of the entire team of twenty-three yoke, jabbing each ox that wasn’t standing up firm in his yoke with the butt end of his whip stock, which had a sharp brad in the end. He stepped off about six feet from near the center of the team, swung his whip, and threw the lash forward. It popped like a forty-five, and he hollered: “Yea, Duke and Dime; Get Up!” Duke and Dime were his leaders. His whip was popping under their bellies, and every ox in that team seemed to be trying to shove himself through his yoke. The wagon started to move, but not a wheel rolled until it struck hard, gravelly earth, the wagon scooping every vestige of sod the width of it, and left a cavity of blue muck in its wake that both wagons could have been buried in.” 

Remarks:

1 That is a new cartridge and load that we have never heard of – not saying it isn’t possible, just that we have never heard of it before.

2 That is not a typo – it read “Twenty-Seven Pounds”!

3 Small, Floyd B., Autobiography of a Pioneer, F.B. Small, Seattle, Washington, 1916, PP 46-50, 52-53, 98-100.