534 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



On June 6 the teams from Fort Keogh arrived, and we immediately- 

 returned to Miles City, taking with us our live buffalo calf, two fresh 

 buffalo skeletons, three bleached skeletons, seven skulls, one skin entire, 

 and one head skin, in addition to a miscellaneous collection of skins 

 and skeletons of smaller mammals and birds. On reaching Miles City 

 we hastily packed and shipped our collection, and, taking the calf with 

 us, returned at once to Washington. 



II. The Hunt. 



On September 24 I arrived at Miles City a second time, fully equipped 

 for a protracted hunt for buffalo; this time accompanied only by W. 

 Harvey Brown, a student of the University of Kansas, as field assistant, 

 having previously engaged three cowboys as guides and hunters — Irwin 

 Boyd, James McNaney, and L. S. Eussell. Messrs. Boyd and Bussell 

 were in Miles City awaiting my arrival, and Mr. McNaney joined us in 

 the field a few days later. Mr. Boyd acted as my foreman during the 

 entire hunt, a position which he filled to my entire satisfaction. 



Thanks to the energy and good- will of the officers at Fort Keogh, of 

 which Lieutenant-Colonel Cochran was then in command, our transpor- 

 tation, camp equipage, and stores were furnished without an hour's 

 delay. We purchased two months' supplies of commissary stores, a 

 team, and two saddle-horses, and hired three more horses, a light wagon, 

 and a set of double harness. Each of the cowboys furnished one horse; 

 so that in our outfit we had ten head, a team, and two good saddle- 

 horses for each hunter. The worst feature of the whole question of 

 subsistence was the absolute necessity of hauling a supply of grain 

 from Miles City into the heart of the buffalo country for our ten horses. 

 For such work as they had to encounter it was necessary to feed them 

 constantly and liberally with oats in order to keep them in condition to 

 do their work. We took with us 2,000 pounds of oats, and by the be- 

 ginning of November as much more had to be hauled up to us. 



Thirty six hours after our arrival in Miles City our outfit was com- 

 plete, and we crossed the Yellowstone and started up the Sunday Creek 

 trail. We had from Fort Keogh a six-mule team, an escort of four men, 

 in charge of Sergeant Bayliss, and an old veteran of more than twenty 

 years' service, from the Fifth Infantry, Private Patrick McCanna, who 

 was detailed to act as cook and camp-guard for our party during our 

 stay in the field. 



On September 29 we reached Tow's ranch, the HV, on Big Dry Creek 

 (erroneously called Big Timber Creek on most maps of Montana), at the 

 mouth of Sand Creek, which here flows into it from the southwest. This 

 point is said to be 90 miles from Miles City. Here we received our freight 

 from the six-mule wagon, loaded it with bleached skeletons and skulls 

 of buffalo, and started it back to the post. One member of the escort, 

 Private C. S. West, who was then on two months' furlough, elected 

 to join our party for the hunt, and accordingly remained with us to its 



