86 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 4, igog. 
A Buffalo Hunt with the Comanches 
(Continued from page 6i\) 
The days were warm and pleasant,- but the nights were 
cool. I rode all day in my shirt sleeves, only wearmg a 
coat at night. When away from the post this way, our 
officers were not particular as to what we^ wore as long 
as we kept on at least one piece of the uniform; we had 
to do that. I had left the post wearing a pair of cor- 
duroy trousers, an army blouse and a white hat; but had 
since thrown off the blouse and put on a canvas hunting 
coat of the chief's, and wore moccasins instead of boots. 
Had this lieutenant met me and not known me, the only 
evidence he could find about me to suspect me of being a 
soldier would be my saddle and pistol holsters; my field 
belt even I li^d made myself. But 1 had a traveling 
order. It is given to every man who leaves the post for 
more than a day or two; and tells who he is, where he is 
going, what he is going there for, and, tells diim, lest he 
should forget it (I \vould be liable to forget it anyhow), 
to return without loss of unnecessary time. He is sup- 
posed to show this order to anyone asking for it. I 
wO'Uld never show mine to anyone except a commissioned 
officer or a sheriff if I knew him to be one; or if he -first 
showed me his badge or commission. Some of these fel- 
lows out on the frontier here were always anxious to 
see our orders when they met us ; they were after the 
$30 that are paid for arresting a deserter. To one of 
them I would refer to my pistol as my traveling order, 
and generally had to refer to it only . once to the same 
man. I had the sheriff of Parker county, Texas, stop me 
in the road one day and hand out his commission. I 
did not know him, but he only wanted me and six 
men I had with me to act as his posse and help him to 
arrest a lot of cowboys. He got us as soon as I knew 
who he was. I was always ready to help civil authorities 
until Congress told us to step it, and not meddle with 
civil affairs. 
I camped early to-night, as I came to a creek that had 
good timber on it, and did not , know whether the next 
creek would be five or fifty miles from here, and did not 
want to make another camp without fire. I left the Crow 
in camp to watch, and the Antelope and I went to look 
for more of his namesakes to shoot. We kept up along 
the creek, looking carefully at, both banks of it for a 
trail of deer or antelope which would be coming here for 
water, and at last found one only a few hours old. The 
Antelope got down on his knees and studying it, said : 
"They were in here this morning." 
"Let us go out on the trail and wait until they come 
in this evening," I said. 
After we had watched on this trail for an hour, the boy 
told me that they were coming. ■ I could just see them 
away across the prairie. He let them come up to within 
thirty yards, then fired, and the leader dropped. Then , 
I fired and got one ; then let him fire, and it took two 
shots for him to get another. Then T sent three shots 
among them. They had got over their panic now, and 
were beginning to run, and I . downed rny second one. 
"Don't fire again," I told the boy, "we have enough. 
Let the rest go until the next time." 
I should have shot but two, only that I wanted the 
hides for buckskin. The Antelope brought out the 
ponies, and putting two antelope on, each, we returned 
to camp. 
In traveling over this country I had to do just as we 
do' at sea, only I had no sextant to tell me at noon each 
day just where I was. Now I had to go by dead reckon- 
ing, and never knew exactly just where I was. I would 
mark on the map each night the spot where I thought I 
was then; next note the direction- our main camp was 
from here; then make up my mind as to where I wanted 
to go next day; go there after I had marked.it in my 
map, then try to verify by the distance I had traveled 
to-day and the direction whether I was right or not. 
There were no mountains, or I could have taken bearings 
from them, and then be sure that I was right. 
While I was at this the boys would watch me closely, 
then ask. "Where are we now?" 
"Here," I would say, pointing to my map. 
"And where is the big camp?" 
"Over here where this mark is." 
"Does the box [the compass] say so?" 
"Yes; it tells me where I am and where the big camp 
is. That mark there on the box points to the big camp 
to-day. To-morrow it won't; but to-morrow I'll show 
you which of these marks points to it then." 
I kept to the northeast next day. The place I meant 
to camp at, if I had not made any mistakes, would be 
thirty miles directly south of our main camp. Before 
starting to-day I put two venison hams on each saddle 
to carry with us, as I did not know but what we might 
strike a poor camp for game. 
The creek on which I camped at night had some heavy 
limber on it, and I thought it would be a good place to 
find turkeys. The Antelope and I went to look for them, 
and found a turkey roost, but the turkeys were not at 
home yet. After dark all three of us went back and 
found that the turkeys were there. The tree was full of 
them. It was so- dark that we could not see to aim, but 
could only stand under the tree and shoot straight up. 
If we shot the lower ones first, then those roosting 
higher up would sit still and let us shoot until we got 
all of them; but if we should happen to hit one which 
was roosting high up an4 this one on its way down were 
to hit one of the others, as it was likely to do, then all 
\v-ould leave; and that is just what happened. I gave the 
boys each a pistol and kept the rifle myself, and we got 
under the tree and began firing. A number of turkeys 
dropped, and at last a big one that must have had a room 
near the roof got a call, and on its way clown knocked 
another one off its perch, and this one, giving a squawk, 
lit out, followed by the rest of them. But the big turkey 
was not through knocking yet; it landed square on the 
Crow's head and shoulders, knocking him down also. 
The Comanche language does not contain a great many 
curse words; but the English language has a few also, 
and the Crow getting up now proceeded to make copious 
extracts from both languages to express his opinion of 
this turkev, his fathers, his grandfathers, and, all the rest 
(if the turkey tribe, while I and the Antelope rolled on 
the grass yelling and laughing. We hunted up our dead 
lu.rkeys, and found that we had six. 
"Now I don't want many of these turkeys cut up to- 
niglit." I told the boys. "We go home to-morrow ;^Jet 
us bring most of them in for the squaws to cook. The 
Crow can eat the big one which hit him, though; I don't 
care." 
"No, I'll take him home." he said, "but I'll scalp him 
liere." He did this, and then burned the scalp, after 
doing some more cursing over it. Then they plucked a 
snijiller. turkey for our supper. 
Next ntorning I got ready to pull out for home. I had 
, six deer skins and five turkeys to carry on three ponies; 
but an Indian pony can carry almost any load that is 
];ul on him, and generally looks as though you had for- 
gotten him if j^ou don't pile half a ton on his back and 
climb on top of it yourself. 
Late in the afternoon the Crow, who was riding ahead, 
on coming to a rise in the prairie, pointed ahead and 
said, "There is campo." 
"Yes, the box told me that it was there an hour ago." 
I had been gone five days, but no one had come to 
the camp. Buffalo were getting scarce, but there was 
no use in our going further west after them. I had 
been far enough west to see that there were none 
there, none at least in the country I had been in. They 
were west of us somewhere; but the Mexicans would 
sooner or later drive them east to us again. The chief 
said he would stay here a while longer, then if buffalo 
did not come he would go home. It would take him a 
month or more to get home if he were to start now. 
He had as many robes and as much meat as the ponies 
he had saddles for could carry. They can carry robes 
on a pony without a saddle, but don't like to do it. 
The squaws made the saddles, and I had been handling 
them for years, but had never seen them made. I did 
now. They are only two forks, cut out of limbs of 
trees, with small boards cut out of soft wood to rest 
on the pony's back. All the tools a squaw has to make 
them with are her small ax, penknife and butcher 
knife, and a stout piece of wire to burn holes with. 
There is not a nail or rivet about the saddle. It is put 
together with rawhide thongs put on wet, and when 
they get dry they are nearly as hard as iron. 
The chief set the squaws to making saddles and mend- 
ing broken bridles. Their work on these bridles was 
rather clumsy; I had made and mended machine belts 
years ago, and taking a broken bridle rein, I shaved off 
each end, then lapping them, sewed it with sinews, 
while the squaws looked on; then they could do it 
themselves. 
What I had been looking for all winter now took 
place, rations ran out. The chief's squaw cut us down 
to bread once a day, and soon gave us none at all. 
There was no more flour. Next the coffee and sugar 
went. "VVell, I can live on deer, turkey aiid buffalo 
as long as the Comanche can," I said to the chief. 
"Yes you are a Comanche now. I say it. I have 
given you the Comanche feathers and you wear them. 
Every Comanche will know when he sees them that 
you are one; and some day you will come to me; then 
we will come here and stay. We won't go back any 
more. It is good. I say it." 
"If I think it is as good as the chief seems to think 
it is," I said to myself, "I may be out here some day 
with these Comanches, deployed across the prairie 
here -ready to fight the cavalry. I would have one ad- 
vantage over the chief then, I would know just how 
this cavalry would go about taking me in; and know 
how to block' the game, and I might know the officer 
in -command, and whether he Avas fast or slow, and if 
he were, slow, while he was studying up his next move, 
I might take him in. I have been with a troop of 
cavalry when it has driven a lot of Indians before it like 
a flock of sheep, when, if there had been with these 
Indians a white man who knew just the strength of 
this troop, and had these Indians been Comanches, he 
might have swung th~em into line and have, wiped the 
troop out. 
"No," I told the chief, "it is not well. In a few years 
now the buffalo will be all gone, the white man is 
killing them off; we see it; and then the Comanche 
could not live here; he would starve to death. _ You 
are a good Indian now, the Great Father knows it, his 
big chiefs here tell him so. You stay on the reserva- 
tion. I don't .want to see my brothers starve." 
More than one Indian war might have been avoided, 
had there been a white man whom the Indians could 
trust to tell them to stop at home. 
Seven years after this, when this, band and a num- 
ber of others did go otit, I rode into their camp 
alone, and persuaded him to take his band home agam 
and another that he controlled. My troop was over 
twenty miles away, and I did not have to fire a shot. _ 
We had about all the robes and meat the ponies 
could carry. A pony cannot carry much^ over l8o 
pounds, and carry it day after day; and while a good 
mule can only carry 300 pounds, he can drag a thous- 
and. I was studying a plan to give us more transporta- 
tion, but found that I could not make it work. I did 
not have the right kind of saddles. I wanted to make 
travois — they are only a rude kind of horse litter, and 
are not much used by these southern Indians. I had 
seen them among the Crows at the north. These 
Crows are the Comanches of the north, they and the 
Comanche have many traits- in common. The travois 
is made by lashing two long poles to the saddle, then 
lacing a rawhide between them; the load goes on the 
rawhide, and once on it, can be left on, as the poles 
have to be taken off the saddle each night to get the 
saddle off. 
I made one of these for my packsaddle, and one of 
the chief's big mules dragged half a ton of robes on 
it all the way home. (I could not use these travois 
now though, for they do not use packsaddies in the 
army, but aparajoes, which resemble a bed sack, only 
they are made of leather and are stuffed with straw; 
tliey beat a packsaddle all hollow though.) The 
Indian saddles were too light for travois, they would 
pull all to pieces, I thought. 
there was a high "butte," a hill that stands out by 
itself, on a prairie a few miles south of camp; and a few 
days after I had come home from New Mexico, I took 
my mule one morning and went to examine it. I found 
that the only place where I could get up on it, was 
on the south side, a mere deer trail. I led my mule 
up on top and found a flat place covered with tall 
partly dry grass. I left my mule and walked d'own to 
the eastern end of this flat. I wanted to look at the 
country east of this through the glass to see if there 
were s'igns of buffalo being in it; but before doing so 
I glanced down at the foot of the butte, and just be- 
low me saw a flock of about a dozen turkeys that had 
for a leader one of the largest turkeys I had ever seen. 
They had not seen me, and were starting to come up 
here. I ran to my saddle and got m^y carbine, then corn- 
ing halfway back lay down just as the big turkey came in 
sight. And aiming at his breast, 1 fired, and he tumbled, 
clear to the foot of the hill, the others running back 
to where they had come from in the bottom. 
I led my mule down to where the big one lay and 
stooped to pick him up. I had no idea but that he 
was dead; but he got up and ran a hundred yards before 
I caught and killed him. I had put a .44 ball in at his 
breast, and it had come out under his wing, and had 
not killed him. I tied him as high as I could to the 
cantle of the saddle, and still his head dragged on the 
ground. I had to cut it off. 
Leaving the mule. I went down into the bottom to 
where I had marked down the other turkeys and shot 
a smaller one. I tied this to the saddle, also telling the 
mule that I would load him with turkeys and then walk 
home. I do not know if that mule quite understood 
me, but I kept my word only in part. I did not load 
him with turkeys or anything else, but I did walk horne. 
I had not tied the mule, as I had never known him 
to move from the spot I left him in, and he was graz- 
ing now quietly. I started after more turkeys, but had 
not gone one hundred yards, when, hearing a noise 
behind me, I looked around in time to see the mule 
leaving on the jump, headed for camp. lie needed 
no compass either to find it. He would go about a 
hundred yards, then stop to kick at the big turkey, 
then, look to see if I were coming — I was — then go on 
again. I was mad enough to shoot that mule. The 
only thing that saved him was the fact that I would 
have to pay for him if I did, or else "swear him off 
the papers" — make an affidavit that he had died or had 
been stolen. I could not do that and did not want 
to pay $150 for a dead mule, so I let him go. 
He got into camp a long way ahead of me. The 
boys caught him and took off the saddle and the big 
turkey; he had managed to lose the small one on his 
way home, but I sent the boys back on the trail and 
they found it. The squaws cooked the big one, and 
then there was only one camp kettle in the band large 
enough to hold him after he had been cut up. The 
heart did not go in it either; it was burned lest it 
should make cowards of us. 
[to be continued.] 
C.\BiA Blanco. 
Senator Spooner yesterday w^as propounding a conun- 
drum to his colleagues. It was propounded to him the 
other evening while he was out to dinner. Althongh 
a very simple little thing, the Senator, while possessing, 
the keenest legal mind in Congress, had been unable to 
frame a correct reply. He enjoyed trying it on others. ' 
This conundrum was : "Which has more feet — one cat ' 
or no cat?" _ ' 
"I pass it over to you," or something like that, was the 
almost invariable reply. 
"Why, no cat, of course," Mr. Spooner would respond. 
"One cat has fottr i^fiX, No^ cat has five feet."— Washing;- 
ton Post ' ' 
