The Bison or American Buffalo. 233 



for the head-waters of the Salt Fork of the Brazos, the 

 centre of abundance for the great buffalo herds. During 

 the first few days they were in the outskirts of the settled 

 country, and shot only small game quail and prairie fowl ; 

 then they began to kill turkey, deer, and antelope. These 

 they swapped for flour and feed at the ranches or squalid, 

 straggling frontier towns. On several occasions the hun- 

 ters were lost, spending the night out in the open, or sleep- 

 ing at a ranch, if one was found. Both towns and ranches 

 were filled with rough customers ; all of my brother's com- 

 panions were muscular, hot-headed fellows ; and as a con- 

 sequence 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 arrival, either at a halting-place, a little 

 village, or a rival buffalo-camp is followed by the laconic 

 remark, " big fight," or "big row " ; but once they evidently 

 concluded discretion to be the better part of valor, the en- 

 try for January 2oth 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 exclusive 

 right to the range it was the first to find ; and on several 

 occasions this feeling came near involving my brother and 

 his companions in serious trouble. 



While slowly driving the heavy wagons to the hunting 

 grounds they suffered the usual hardships of plains travel. 

 The weather, as in most Texas winters, alternated between 

 the extremes of heat and cold. There had been little 



