In Buffalo Days 



though he might run buffalo a thousand times 

 without accident, the moment might come 

 when only instant action would save him 

 his life, or at least an ugly hurt. 



In the early days of the first Pacific Rail- 

 road, and before the herds had been driven 

 back from the track, singular hunting-parties 

 were sometimes seen on the buffalo range. 

 These hunters were capitalists connected with 

 the newly constructed road, and some of 

 them now for the first time bestrode a horse, 

 while few had ever used firearms. On such 

 a hunt, one well-known railroad director, 

 eager to kill a buffalo, declined to trust him- 

 self on horseback, preferring to bounce over 

 the rough prairie in an ambulance driven by 

 an alarmed soldier, who gave less attention to 

 the mules he was guiding than to the loaded 

 and cocked pistol which his excited passenger 

 was brandishing. These were amusing ex- 

 cursions, where a merry party of pleasant 

 officers from a frontier post, and their guests, 

 a jolly crowd of merchants, brokers, and rail- 

 road men from the East, started out to have a 

 buffalo-hunt. With them went the post guide 

 and a scout or two, an escort of soldiers, and 



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