AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



21 



May, and then went to Topeka, remaining there about two weeks collecting, 

 chiefly birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects. We arrived at Fort Hays May 

 26, where we remained till July 3, becoming well acquainted with the sur- 

 rounding country while waiting for the military escort we were assured 

 was necessary for our safety in going out to the buffalo range, some thirty 

 miles northwest of the post. The cavalry, however, was absent on escort 

 duty with government supply trains and the date of their return was 

 tantalizingly indefinite. While waiting for several weeks for this alleged 

 essential to our buffalo work, we made the acquaintance of Charles Clark- 

 son, a professional buffalo hunter who for several years had hunted buffalo 

 in winter for shipment to the eastern cities. This intelligent, enterprising 

 and level-headed New Englander, who lived in a dugout on the outskirts 

 of the military reservation, who owned a good pair of mules and a wagon, 

 and was familiar with the ways of the Sioux Indians, assured us it would be 

 quite safe to go on a buffalo hunt without the encumbrance of a military 

 escort. As he was willing to act as our scout and hunter and furnish us 

 with the necessary transportation for a reasonable consideration, we deemed 

 it safe to trust to his judgment regarding the risks entailed. 



We left Fort Hays on our buffalo hunt June 21, returning four days 

 later with a wagon load of buffalo skeletons and skulls, besides leaving on 

 the open prairie five skeletons we had prepared that we were unable to 

 bring with us for lack of room. As we still needed an old cow, and had 

 secured no calves, Clarkson and I returned to the buffalo range the next 

 day, and at the end of another four days had completed our desiderata, 

 having not only secured a fine old cow skeleton and a number of young 

 calves, but had also retrieved the skeletons left on our former trip, which, 

 however, we found had been somewhat damaged by coyotes. In all our 

 spoils numbered 14 complete skeletons and several additional skulls, repre- 

 senting both sexes and various ages, from yearlings to old bulls and cows; 

 also the skins as well as skeletons of five young calves. The time thus 

 occupied was eight days, involving about thirty-six hours of travel. We 

 saved no skins, except those of the calves, as at this season the old coat had 

 been shed (except of course on the shoulders and head) and the new coat 

 was so short that it barely concealed the skin. 



The experience was one long to be remembered, as we took no camp out- 

 fit but our blankets, a little flour and canned fruits, depending naturally 

 upon buffalo meat for our main subsistence, buffalo chips supplying us with 

 fuel. Our blankets were our only shelter at night, and our wagon was the 

 only available screen from the hot midday sun, under the shade of which we 

 crept to eat our dinner. 1 We saw no Indians, but the landscape was every- 



1 Temperature 105° F. in the shade on one occasion, and usually over 100° at midday. 



