26 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



We were prepared to start on our hunt on the morning of December 31, 

 but the weather turned severely cold and delayed our departure till the 

 following day, January 1, 1872, when we drove south with Clarkson's outfit 

 for nine miles and then returned, finding no buffalo, and being assured by 

 hunting parties we met that there were no buffalos in that direction. We 

 lunched at Coyote and then drove north nearly to the Saline River, camping 

 for the night six miles north of Coyote, and the following night on the South 

 Fork of the Solomon, 30 miles from Coyote. The next morning we went 

 northwest, along the divide between the Saline and the Solomon, to a point 

 opposite Buffalo Station, thence turning north and camping on the North 

 Fork of the Solomon. We saw no buffalo, but were informed by returning 

 hunters that there was a large herd six or eight miles to the northward, 

 where a band of Omaha Indians were hunting them. The next night we 

 camped on a tributary of the Solomon, ten miles northeast of Grinnell. 

 During the day's drive we saw a few buffalo about 2 p. m., and were in sight 

 of small bands for the rest of the day, but they were too wild to permit of a 

 near approach. The next day, January 4, we came up with the first old 

 bulls about five miles from camp, but they were wary, and the ground was 

 unfavorable for stalking them. The weather became suddenly threatening 

 and the wind keen and piercing from the north. Clarkson and his partner, 

 Alden, deemed it imprudent to go further from the railroad, as if a storm 

 should overtake us we would be far from shelter and without wood. They 

 decided to return toward the Saline, from which point we could easily reach 

 shelter should a storm render it necessary. We turned southward and in a 

 few miles came upon a small herd of buffalo, from which Clarkson killed 

 five, Alden three, and I got an old bull. The weather continuing cold and 

 the sky overcast, with signs of a storm, we put up our large Sibley tent, 

 which protected us from the wind and served as our base for the next three 

 days, during which, although buffalo were scarce, our hunters secured their 

 loads of meat, and we obtained nearly the desired number of skins. On the 

 return journey we secured two more, reaching Buffalo Station on the even- 

 ing of the 7th. The station consisted of the section house and two freight 

 cars, one of them fitted up with sleeping bunks and the other serving as 

 kitchen, and a water tank and two or three dugouts. The owner of one 

 of the latter, a buffalo hunter, happened to be absent and Mr. Bennett 

 and I slept in his dugout. Although the entrance was ankle deep with 

 water, and the floor also covered with water, we passed a comfortable night, 

 such shelter as this being far preferable to sleeping out of doors in the 

 chilling south wind then prevailing. We learned here that the buffalo had 

 left the whole line of the railroad, presumably driven off by the 600 or more 

 Omaha Indians we had seen encamped on the Solomon. So we felt satis- 

 fied that we had done as well as was possible under the conditions. 



