The Bison or American Buffalo 7 



for the great buffalo herds. During the first 

 few days they were in the outskirts of the set- 

 tled country, and shot only small game quail 

 and prairie fowl ; then they began to kill tur- 

 key, deer, and antelope. These they swapped 

 for flour and feed at the ranches or squalid, 

 straggling frontier towns. On several occa- 

 sions the hunters were lost, spending the night 

 out in the open, or sleeping at a ranch, if 

 one was found. Both towns and ranches 

 were filled with rough customers; all of my 

 brother's companions were muscular, hot- 

 headed fellows; and as a consequence they 

 were involved in several savage free fights, in 

 which, fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt, 

 My brother kept a very brief diary, the entries 

 being fairly startling from their conciseness. 

 A number of times the mention of their ar- 

 rival, either at a halting-place, a little village, 

 or a rival buffalo-camp, is followed by the 

 laconic ramark, "big fight," or "big row"; 

 but once they evidently concluded discretion 

 to be the better part of valor, the entry for 

 January aoth being, "On the road passed 

 through Belknap too lively, so kept on to the 

 Brazos very late." The buffalo-camps in 

 particular were very jealous of one another, 

 each party regarding itself as having exclu- 



