Dudes and Sagebrushers * * * * 21 



sands of 'em, right here on this spot where we're talkin' now, an' when 

 they saw me they started to chase me. Their war whoops wuz blood- 

 curdlin', an' they waved their tommyhawks an' came right after me. I 

 ran up yon' canyon, hopin' to get away from 'em. But they kep' on 

 comin' an' gamin' on me. I ran faster an' faster, but they kep' a-gainin' 

 an' a-gainin' an' pretty soon they caught up with me. I saw something 

 had to be done, an' I looked up. To the 

 left o' me wuz a cliff a mile high and to 

 the right o' me another one half a mile 

 high, an' then all of a sudden I came 

 'round a bend an' right in front o' me 

 wuz a cliff two miles high. I wuz trapped. 

 That's all they wuz to it trapped, where 

 the devils couldn't help but get me." 



Dead silence, as the old fellow fin 

 ished his story. 



Some Dude always broke it with : ^* ^F mf, 11 



"Well, what did they do to you ?" 



Trembling with emotion, the old man 

 said: "By God, they killed me!" 



Another whopper that always made a hit with the Dudes was the 

 story originally told by "Buffalo" Jones of how he saved the great 

 American bison from extinction. He galloped into the Yellowstone one 

 time, he said, to find the last of the bison being killed by the wolves and 

 the coyotes. In fact, they were all dead but a few calves, which the 

 wolves were just proceeding to kill. 



"I roped eight calves and saved them," he asserted, "though the 

 wolves and the coyotes were surrounding us by the hundreds. As soon 

 as I got one calf, I tied my hat to it, knowing the brutes would never 

 touch anything tainted with the fresh scent of man. To the next calf I 

 tied my coat, to the next my vest, and so on, until I didn't have anything 

 on but my socks. When I had saved the eighth, I picked it up in my arms 

 and galloped back for the seventh, which was surrounded by wolves. I 

 then hurried back to the sixth and grabbed that calf just in the nick of 

 time. I tied the lasso around these calves and fastened the end to the 

 horse's neck and raced to the other calves and saved them again just in 

 time. The strain of saving them all was so great that I fainted, but just 

 then my boys came up and drove off the wolves and gave me some 

 whiskey and saved the calves again so that the buffalo was never entirely 

 wiped out." 



It is a happy custom which has grown up in all of the national parks 

 for the Dudes and Sagebrushers to gather after dinner about the fire, 

 either in hotels, lodges, or in the private camps, for informal enter- 



