Securing Buffalo Meat for Winter Part II

The book is a fascinating read and instead of editing his narration we have chosen to present it as he wrote it. We cannot presume we can improve it.

“I wish to state in the beginning of this article, for the benefit of those who are not familiar with that part of the United States above referred to, that in speaking of the western plains of Kansas I am not speaking of some one’s front yard, but of a country of sixty-three thousand and three hundred square miles – and in speaking of the western plains of Kansas and Nebraska and the eastern plains of Colorado I am not referring to a ball park, but to a country of three hundred thousand square miles.

“In my succeeding articles I shall carry the reader into and through all of the last named country, which is known in its natural state, forty-four years ago and earlier, as the Great American Plains, or the short grass country. This story, however, will be confined to the plains of Western Kansas only. In the early settlement of Kansas it was a custom late in the fall of the year for parties of settlers to join forces and go farther west on a buffalo hunt, where the buffalo could usually be found from twenty-five to fifty miles beyond the extreme western border of settlement.

“On December 6th, 1873, a party of settlers numbering seven in all, myself included, taking three teams and wagons, started for the buffalo grounds, expecting to drive possibly one hundred and twenty-five miles. The head waters of Prairie Dog Creek, in Graham County, was our objective point. The writer had been employed that season by a cattleman owning a ranch on the North Fork of the Solomon River, on the western border of settlement at that time, and had gathered the information that the head waters of Prairie Dog Creek would in all probability be the most likely locality to find buffalo that fall in sufficient numbers to secure the amount of meat we desired without hunting and consuming too much time, as it was getting late in the fall and one of those Kansas blizzards, for which that part of the country is famous, could be expected along at any time. We had no inclination to be caught out in one on those high and barren prairies. 

I was told to hold the position of cook – and was to share in the proceeds of the hunt, whatever it might be. It didn’t require much of a culinary artist to fill that position, as our grub box contained only flour, port, beans, brown sugar and coffee. 

“Our firearms consisted of one repeating Henry rifle, .44-40, one Joslyn rifle, cartridge gun, .44-70, one .44 caliber cap and ball rifle, known as a buffalo gun, and possibly was the most accurate gun in the outfit, also one needle gun. That was the most destructive gun we had, provided it found the mark – that was the only trouble. As a whole, they all were very good guns at any range from two to five hundred yards – but beyond that the needle gun was the only one that would do much execution. It could not be depended upon over a range of about two hundred and fifty yards for accuracy. 

“On the morning of the fourth day out about nine o’clock we reached Prairie Dog Creek, proceeded up the stream, saw one straggling buffalo about noon some three or four miles to the south of us, traveling east, no attention being paid to it. About three o’clock that afternoon we passed beyond all sign of timber. The weather becoming more threatening, we made camp early in a draw having high banks that would provide a partial windbreak should a storm break upon us. A draw is a dry tributary. We were close to the creek, a stream of water that you could step across anywhere you chose. Willow brush grew along the banks at intervals. We gathered a supply of it that was dead in order that we might have something to burn providing a storm did set in, which by this time seemed a foregone conclusion. The air had thickened, wind calmed, and all that was lacking was for the snow to commence falling. 

“I was busy trying to get our supper cooked by that brush fire, not a sprig larger than a man’s finger, and I had to bake bread that night, for the supply we left home with had run out that day noon. The balance of the party were making themselves useful staking and banking up the tent, arranging things in general in the best shape possible to receive the storm. The draw that we had pitched camp in emptied into the creek from the north, having unusual high banks on either side, extending north as far as you could see. Our camp was on the east flank of the bank as they open out on reaching the little valley of the creek. This draw from bank to bank was possibly seventy-five yards wide. 

“We had gotten everything arranged as best we could. I had our supper spread out on the buffalo grass inside the tent. All hands were settling themselves on the grass around the spread. Everyone hungry enough to eat a piece of coyote, and everybody discussing what our predicament would be the next morning. No one in that crowd however, was a prophet, as the reader will soon learn. It was getting dark. All hands were busy eating when the storm broke, but not a snow storm. We were stormed by buffalo. I, being on my feet and the nearest to the opening of the tent, shot outside first. I don’t think anyone ever came any nearer running right into a live buffalo than I did; for not over thirty feet from that tent was a monstrous bull buffalo. I stopped so sudden it is a wonder that I didn’t tear my shoe heels off. I hollered and if the reader had seen what I saw he would have hollered, too. The bull was moving, my appearance and the noise I made quickened his pace a little. The balance of the boys ran out, and, to our consternation, there were buffalo by the hundred. Buffalo all about us – buffalo everywhere. The draw was black with them as far north as we could see. 

“It was getting dark now and we could only see a few hundred yards. The men ran to their horses and just avoided their upsetting the wagon, to which they were fastened. They were simply crazed with fright. The vanguard of the buffalo bore off to the right, the drift in the rear following their lead. As soon as the buffalo switched far enough away that the horses could be calmed, shooting began. It was getting too dark now to pick out an individual buffalo to fire at, therefore firing was simply directed at the black stream passing in front of us. In possibly a half hour the last buffalo had passed. At no time was there any commotion among them from the fire directed at them, the range not being over one hundred and fifty yards. They kept straight on their way south, crossed the little stream, taking up the gradual rise from the creek, headed for the wide divide lying between Prairie Dog Creek and the north fork of the Solomon River, some thirty miles distant. 

“It started to snow about this time. All was dark and quiet, not a tinkling to indicate what had taken place there twenty minutes before. Heavier and heavier the snow came down, the grass was white in a very few minutes; all hands began to reconnoiter around to see if any dead buffalo were present. There were nine found, all north of the creek; none over three hundred yards from camp; some dead, others were not. I can vouch for one that wasn’t dead, the first one I discovered. It had the appearance of being so. I hollered to the men that I had found one. The racket aroused it. It got up, or I thought it did. At any rate, I saw enough of it that I can truthfully say I have never taken leave of any place that I have been in with any less hesitancy than I did from the presence of that buffalo. There in the dark I certainly extended myself for once.

“Starting right here as this story is pictured to the reader, I wish to say that during the fifty years I have spent in Western country I never have experienced the nerve racking and the unseemingly insurmountable hardships that beset our party for the next nine days and nights. The weather turned colder, the wind raised, the snow continued to fall, being whipped here there and everywhere by the increasing wind. A raging blizzard was upon us. No one unless they have experienced the enormity of one of those death-dealing blizzards that swooped down, on and over those wild, wide prairies of the great American plains, obstructed by nothing, can fully grasp our deplorable situation that night at nine o’clock, with nine dead buffalo lying about us and fast freezing stiff. The killing had been easy. It had no precedent, and while we were so extremely fortunate in getting our meat slaughtered we paid the price before we got it home. It was ours for the taking, and if not skinned and quartered immediately it would be a total loss. 

“Ourselves and horses beginning to suffer with cold greatly added to our most unpleasant predicament. The instincts of the buffalo had warned them of this approaching storm and were the prime motive for their drifting southward. The buffalo, as well as the wild goose, have sense enough to go south in winter and north in summer. The buffalo cannot endure either excessive heat or cold, and for that reason were always on the move, working south in the fall and winter as far as the pan-handle of Texas, and north in the summer as far as the Black Hills in South Dakota. The Great Plain was really their home and had been for hundreds of years, perhaps, for they could be found there in endless numbers ten months in the year. Settlement advanced west both on the north and south of the Great Plain several years earlier than it did on the plains, thus surrounding them and confining their range to the plains alone. This done, and settlement gradually working west over the plains, the Rocky Mountains on the west, they were completely surrounded and no escape left them. This transpiring in the years of 1874 and 1875. Not with standing the storm, we could ill afford to permit this meat to lie there without an effort at least to save as much of it as we could handle. So all hands set to work skinning and quartering, and what a job it was in that freezing, blinding snow storm. We had a lantern, but could not keep it burning for one minute, on account of the strong wind. The moon was near its full, but was not visible by a long shot, but did assist us materially. The first three buffalo dressed were cows. The fourth one reached was a bull, an old-timer. His hide bore the marks of hard battles, one horn was gone, and, by the way, this was the first and only buffalo I have ever seen that had lost a horn. This old bull had been hit by a ball from the needle gun striking him in the head some two inches above the eye, tearing that side of the head away. He sure met his Waterloo when he ran into the old needle gun. A buffalo has a double skull. The fifth buffalo reached was the one that gave me the start of my life earlier in the evening. It was also a bull, but not a large one. It was wounded in the spine, had fallen when hit; it possibly did get up on its forefeet when I discovered it, but it was impossible for it to have stood upon four legs. Its back was broken. It was dead and stiff when we reached it. Our next buffalo was very much alive. However, it could not stand. It was badly wounded through both shoulders. This fellow had been in the wrong direction when the old buffalo gun spit fire. Its troubles were ended by a shot from the little Henry rifle in the head at a range of about thirty feet. We skinned seven, took the carcasses of four, the hindquarters of the other three and the seven hides, leaving two carcasses upon the ground untouched. We had all we could haul and more, too, considering the conditions we found traveling on our homeward trip. 

“We had pulled out upon the divide to escape the snowdrifts in the breaks along the creek. Realizing we could not pass the night so utterly exposed as we were, we headed south and struck Prairie Dog Creek about ten p.m., covering a distance that day of about eight miles. We pitched camp without any shelter whatever. We succeeded in finding a little brush with which a fire was started, some coffee boiled and some buffalo meat partly fired and eaten without bread. Everything we had in the way of bedding was again thrown over the horses, which now had no roughness of fodder whatever, simply a feed of corn. 

“We were all stalking about inside the tent, some already with their feet, ears and fingers badly frost bitten, doing everything we could to keep up a circulation, when the horses were heard snorting and lunging at their fastenings. On looking out we discovered two large buffalo wolves sitting upon their haunches not over twenty yards distant from the horses. It was a bright moonlight night; one could see a small object quite a distance. About the time that the two wolves were discovered, two more showed up, sneaking in from another direction. It was apparent now that something was to be done. The horses had noticed the other two and would either break their necks or break loose. Two of the party, with their guns in hand, slipped outside the tent. When the wolves saw them they set up a howl and inside of two minutes they were answered by their companions in different directions. We could see other objects moving about on the prairie. 

“Every gun was brought into use at these devils; two men going to the horses. The two wolves first seen would not give an inch; one of them was hit by a bullet and set up a pitiful cry. Its mate attacked it; the second two were by this time close in, and they also took a hand in the melee, all three attacking the one that was wounded. Our fire was directed on the bunch and kept up until the last one of the four was down. We stopped firing, as we could not see sufficiently to warrant shooting. Three men stood guard from this on until daylight, firing frequently, for watch as close as they could, the first thing they knew a horse would snort and there would be from one to three of these varmints all but upon them in a sneaking attitude, similar to that of a cat slipping on its prey. They were a determined lot and but for the firing, nothing could have prevented an actual attack. At bread of day every wolf in the neighborhood set up their howl, which is very unpleasant; there is no token of friendship about it. We went to examine the four supposedly dead wolves; two of them lay there frozen stiff, with their mouths full and a death grip on their mate that was yet alive. The other one lay dead a short distance away. We took the four pelts. No effort was made to get any breakfast that morning, everyone being just about exhausted, having had no sleep for the last three nights and days, for the cold and wear and tear that we had been subjected to was telling upon us all.

“The sun came out clear, a northwest wind was still blowing and to say it was cold would not express it. We got under headway and pulled for the divide again, but hadn’t gone far when it was noticed that we were being followed by a pack of those devilish wolves. Not wanting to put in another night with those things about us, it was decided to throw out a quarter of meat, give them a feed and possibly they would quit the trail, as it was, of course, the smell of fresh meat that attracted them. We watched what happened when they reached it. A general mix-up and a free-for-all fight is about all we could tell about it. We sighted a small bunch of timber about three in the afternoon to the southeast, some three of four miles distant, and headed directly for it. We reached it just before sundown, and it wasn’t long till we had a rousing fire. We found plenty of dry cottonwood limbs and laid in a supply for the night. After thawing myself out I took a pail and went to the creek for water, which was frozen solid. 

“One of the teamsters had preceded me with his team to water them, and he was endeavoring to break the ice. He told me that he had heard a strange noise coming from the other side of the creek, cautioned me to be quiet and possibly we would hear it again. We did. The sound apparently came from over in a little valley obscured from us by some brush. We heard it several times and it sounded like an animal in distress, a sort of a moaning and then a pounding noise. We reported what we had heard at camp. Myself and three or four others went down the creek bank a short distance until we could get a view of the other side. It was getting dusk now. We could see over in the little valley lying between the creek and a low bluff some sort of an object. It looked quite black in the snow. We could see it move at intervals, but could not make out what it was.

“Anyone who has had experience in a wild country, and especially where the uncivilized Indian wanders at large, soon learns to approach that which they see but don’t understand with a certain degree of caution. Therefore, we left it alone, as we had been having all the excitement we craved. So we returned to camp and proceeded to get some supper, as all hands certainly needed refreshments. We were all cooks that evening; some were frying meat, others slicing, or rather chopping it, another giving his attention to the coffee pot, myself trying to stir up some baking powder bread-my fingers were so badly frost bitten it was a poor job I did. The balance of our party were in no better fix. What we had seen and heard over in the little valley was discussed, pro and con, but no one volunteered to make an investigation. 

“After supper was over and the camp became more quiet the sounds could still be heard. More wood was gathered and a watch of two was ordered; the horses were robbed of a part of their previous nights’ covering and the other five men would to try and get a little rest, the watch to be relieved at twelve o’clock midnight, two more men taking their places, they in turn being relieved at four a.m. At my own suggestion I was allowed the first watch. I figured that I would much prefer to sit there by the fire the first half of the night and then crawl into a warm bunk just vacated than to crawl into a cold one and have to get out again about the time I got it warm. As soon as the camp became quiet the devilish wolves set up a howl. It sounded as though there were a hundred, but all appeared to be over south in the neighborhood of the sounds we had been hearing. It was not long until the sounds were heard again, louder and faster, and hadn’t ceased at twelve o’clock, when we went off watch. We concluded it was a wolf frolic, as we could hear the devils fighting among themselves all evening. There were no wolves showing up on our side of the creek that night. We thought this very strange, in as much as we were loaded with fresh meat.

“I will here describe the buffalo wolf as near as I can remember it. In color it is a dirty gray, in size a half larger than a prairie coyote; I should judge that a large one would weight about eighty pounds. They have a large head, strong jaw, the muzzle tapering to a sharp point, from which a long beard of hair grows out from the sides. The ear is large, but short and pointed. They always carry the head down in a sneaking position. The tail is long and bushy. Their size of sight and smell is very acute, but they are not trailers, running their prey by sight only. They carry a most nauseating odor, equal to that of a hyena.

“The boys that took second watch reported that the noise kept up until near daylight. We all had a curiosity to know what it was, as we could not figure out the moaning and beating sounds; so after having our breakfast it was decided to take a look over that way, as the sun was now up and our nerves were not quite so shaky as on the evening before. Four of us crossed the creek, broke through the brush, and there it was before us. What I saw right there represents the most cruel death to any living thing I have ever witnessed, heard of or read about. And that is saying something. It was a two-year-old buffalo heifer; she had been set upon by those most despicable devils of creation- the buffalo wolf- and cut down behind. They had gnawed at her gamble cords while she was still on foot till they became so weakened she could stand up no longer and fell their prey; they had immediately set upon her no longer and fell their prey; they had immediately set upon her hindquarters to glutton themselves, and had eaten away the bigger portion of one quarter while she still lived. There was not a mark about her head or throat. The carcass was still warm and the marks of agony she died in could be plainly seen. Two of those despicable creatures sat upon the bluff a short distance away sunning themselves. There were four volleys directed at them and I am happy to record that one of them had eaten his last fill of live buffalo meat. The boys at the tent were summoned to see the sight; everybody regretted that we had not investigated the night before; we could at least have killed it and thus put it out of its misery. 

“In the opinion of the writer this was an entirely different pack of wolves from the ones that had given us previous trouble, as we had not seen anything more of them after donating them a quarter of meat. The reader will recall that the writer has previously recorded sighting a lone buffalo about noon on our fourth day out to the south of us, and is giving the opinion of our party that this poor tortured buffalo heifer was the one we saw at that time, and was attacked by this pack of wolves on the afternoon of its destruction, following the storm, and had made for the creek, possibly the water for protection. If this supposition be true it only fell seventy-five yards short of its goal. Its tracks led in from the south, the snow being sprinkled with blood and chopped up by the track of the wolves that were hounding it. Our trip from this on continued to be an arduous one; the weather continued cold, more snow fell the next night, making our headway more difficult. The fourth day out on our return trip we reached a cattle ranch and fared a little better that night. We swapped our injured horse for a plug and give as boot money a quarter of buffalo meat. Our new horse was fresh and fifteen miles being the greatest distance covered in any one day upon our return trip.

“On the night of the seventh day another blizzard set in. We were camped on Big Crooked Horn Creek and were compelled to lay over until noon the next day until the storm abated, when we again pulled out and succeeded in reaching Limestone Creek that night, yet fifteen miles from home. We put out early next morning, determined to reach home that night if possible; half of our time that day and until nine o’clock that night was spent in snowdrifts and in repairing a broken wagon tongue. We reached our settlement between ten and eleven o’clock and stopped at the home of the first two settlers. Worn out, frozen out, and starved out, imagine what a happy boy I was to be again at home, and to have mother supply me with clean clothes and to care for my badly frost bitten ears, hands and feet, for which her reward was two fifty-gallon barrels full to the brim with buffalo meat, each of our party of seven taking a hide. This ended my first and last buffalo hunt in the dead of winter, but not my last buffalo hunt. I have experienced hardships all my life, but for privation and downright suffering this incident was the worst of my pioneer life.” 

Source:

1 Small, Floyd B., Autobiography of a Pioneer, F.B. Small, Seattle, Washington, 1916, PP 15-25