The Lordly Buffalo 279 



after bison. At that time I was staying in a cow- 

 camp a good many miles up the river from my 

 ranch ; there were then no cattle south of me, where 

 there are now very many thousand head, and the 

 buffalo had been plentiful in the country for a 

 couple of winters past, but the last of the herds had 

 been destroyed or driven out six months before, 

 and there were only a few stragglers left. It was 

 one of my first hunting trips ; previously I had shot 

 with the rifle very little, and that only at deer or 

 antelope. I took as a companion one of my best 

 men, named Ferris ( a brother of the Ferris already 

 mentioned) ; we rode a couple of ponies, not very 

 good ones, and each carried his roll of blankets and 

 a very small store of food in a pack behind the 

 saddle. 



Leaving the cow-camp early in the morning, we 

 crossed the Little Missouri and for the first ten 

 miles threaded our way through the narrow defiles 

 and along the tortuous divides of a great tract of 

 Bad Lands. Although it was fall and the nights 

 were cool the sun was very hot in the middle of 

 the day, and we jogged along at a slow pace, so as 

 not to tire our ponies. Two or three black-tail 

 deer were seen, some distance off, and when we 

 were a couple of hours on our journey, we came 

 across the fresh track of a bull buffalo. Buffalo 

 wander a great distance, for, though they do not 

 go fast, yet they may keep traveling, as they graze, 

 all day long; and though this one had evidently 

 passed but a few hours before, we were not sure we 



