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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