214 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
for many days. The culinary apparatus of a whole party consists of a single 
large coffee-pot, a “Dutch oven,” and a skillet, and the table-set of a tin cup 
to each man, the latter vessel often consisting merely of a battered fruit-can. 
Each man’s hunting-knife not only does duty in butchering the buffalo, but is 
the sole implement used in despatching his food, supplying the places of spoon 
and fork as well as knife. The bill of fare consists of strong coffee, often 
without milk or sugar, “ yeast-powder bread,” and buffalo meat fried in buf 
flo tallow. When the meal is cooked the party encircle the skillet, dip their 
bread in the fat, and eat their meat with their fingers. When bread fails, as 
often happens, “ buffalo straight,” or buffalo meat alone, affords them nourish- 
ing sustenance. Occasionally, however, the fare is varied with the addition 
of potatoes and canned fruits. They sleep generally in the open air, in win- 
ter as well as in summer, subjected to every inclemency of the weather. As 
may well be imagined, a buffalo-hunter, at the end of the season, is by no 
means prepossessing in his appearance, being, in addition to his filthy aspect, 
a paradise for hordes of nameless parasites. They are yet a rollicking set, 
and occasionally include men of intelligence, who formerly possessed an ordi- 
nary degree of refinement. Generally none are more conscious of their 
unfitness for civilized society than themselves, and after a few years of such 
free border-life they can hardly be induced to abandon it and resume the 
restraints of civilization. 
Although successful in the pursuit of the buffalo, their success arises from 
the unsuspicious nature of their victims rather than from skill in the use or 
selection of their arms. The improved breech-loading United States musket 
is their favorite weapon, and most of them will use no other. A few employ 
Sharp’s and Winchester rifles; arms of small calibre, however, they generally 
despise. Yet with these heavy arms, used, as they are, at short range, only 
about one shot in three proves fatal, many of the poor beasts getting but a 
broken leg in place of a fatal shot.* This is owing in part to carelessness or 
lack of skill in shooting, and in part to the inaccuracy of the arms. However 
good the gun may be originally, it soon deteriorates and is eventually ruined 
by rough usage. A few of the hunters have good guns, take good care of 
them, and use them effectively, killing their game as readily at three hundred 
and four hundred yards as do the others at one fourth that distance. A rifle 
* When returning from a buffalo-hunt on the Kansas plains in January, 1872, my party fell in with a 
small band of these unfortunates, about thirty in number, nearly all of whom were in some way maimed, 
the greater part having, broken legs. 
eon. h caine sean tieticsininker 
