8 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



plenty of food for our tired ponies. Here we were 

 delighted to find, standing in a ravine, an old bull 

 buffalo, which had been driven out of the herd to 

 die. Concealing ourselves behind the carcass of a 

 cow, we opened fire upon him from our Spencer 

 carbines, and continued to riddle his poor old body 

 with leaden slugs until his struggles ceased. Even 

 then, when he had lain down to rise no more, we 

 crawled up behind him and threw stones at him, 

 to make sure that he was dead. We found his flesh 

 too tough for food; but it was an exciting event to 

 us two boys to kill this massive beast, in earlier days 

 perhaps the leader of the herd. 



In this connection I might tell of a chase I had 

 several years later, while living on a ranch in east- 

 ern Ellsworth County. I saw a huge buffalo bull 

 come loping along from the hills, headed for a sec- 

 tion of land that was inclosed by a wire fence. On 

 the other side of this section there was a piece of 

 timber-land, and fearing that if he got into the dense 

 timber I should lose him, I rode after him at the top 

 of my speed. 



When his lowered head struck the wire fence it 

 flew up like a spring gate and immediately closed 

 down behind him. In order to follow, I had either 

 to cut the wire or go out of my way to a gate half 

 a mile to the south. I decided on the latter course, 

 and applied quirt and spur to my horse, but upon 



