240 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



station where bull-whackers, as they were called, 

 brought their teams to get supplies for the army 

 post. It was a wretched place of a few board 

 shanties and I was glad to learn that the stage 

 for Fort Sill would start the next morning. 

 Bugs in my bed were like Macbeth for they mur- 

 dered sleep and I got up at midnight to visit a 

 bull-whacker's camp from which came pistol 

 shots followed by roars of laughter. Every 

 teamster wore a big revolver, but the shots were 

 not from these. There were two rival camps 

 and they were playing a rough game with their 

 whips of two feet of handle and thirteen of lash. 

 The crack of one of these whips was like the re- 

 port of a rifle and the game was for the cham- 

 pion of one camp to snatch the hat from the 

 hand of one of the other from a distance of 

 twelve feet with the lash of his whip. The pen- 

 alty if the man holding the hat was touched was 

 the privilege of a return shot at a designated 

 part of the champion's body. 



It was a rough-looking gang and I feared that 

 as a tenderfoot I might be the victim of some un- 



