BUFFALO HUNTING. 207 
of delicacies which we should enjoy, but a near inspection 
at once dispelled our illusions. 
On the confines of the buffalo hunting-grounds, had 
settled a family, consisting of a strange mixture of en- 
terprise and idleness, of ragged-looking men and homely 
women. ‘They seemed to have all the bad habits of the 
Indians, with none of their redeeming qualities. They 
were willing to live without labor, and subsist upon the 
precarious bounties of nature. 
Located in the fine climate of Northern Texas, the 
whole year was to them little less than a continued 
spring, and the abundance of game with which they 
were surrounded afforded, what seemed to them, all the 
comforts of life. The men never exerted themselves 
except when hunger prompted, or a spent magazine 
made the acquisition of “ peltries” necessary to barter 
for powder and ball. 
A more lazy, contemptible set of creatures never 
existed, and we would long since have forgotten them, 
had not our introduction to them associated itself with 
our first buffalo steak. 
A large rudely-constructed shed, boarded up on the 
northern side, was the abode. Upon close examination 
it appeared that this “shed” was the common dwelling. 
place of the “family,” which consisted not only of the 
human beings, but also of horses, cows, goats, and ill- 
bred poultry. » 
Immediately around the caravansera, the prairie 
