While slowly driving the heavy wagons to the hunting grounds they suffered the usual hardships of plains travel.The weather,as in most Texas winters,alternated between the extremes of heat and cold.There had been little rain;in consequence water was scarce.Twice they were forced to cross wild,barren wastes,where the pools had dried up,and they suffered terribly from thirst.On the first occasion the horses were in good condition,and they travelled steadily,with only occasional short halts,for over thirty-six hours,by which time they were across the waterless country.The journal reads:"January 27th--Big hunt--no water,and we left Quinn's blockhouse this morning 3A.M.
--On the go all night--hot.January 28--No water--hot--at seven we struck water,and by eight Stinking Creek--grand 'hurrah.'"On the second occasion,the horses were weak and travelled slowly,so the party went forty-eight hours without drinking."February 19th--Pulled on twenty-one miles--trail bad--freezing night,no water,and wolves after our fresh meat.20--Made nineteen miles over prairie;again only mud,no water,freezing hard--frightful thirst.21st--Thirty miles to Clear Fork,fresh water."These entries were hurriedly jotted down at the time,by a boy who deemed it unmanly to make any especial note of hardship or suffering;but every plainsman will understand the real agony implied in working hard for two nights,one day,and portions of two others,without water,even in cool weather.During the last few miles the staggering horses were only just able to drag the lightly loaded wagon,--for they had but one with them at the time,--while the men plodded along in sullen silence,their mouths so parched that they could hardly utter a word.My own hunting and ranching were done in the north where there is more water;so I have never had a similar experience.Once I took a team in thirty-six hours across a country where there was no water;but by good luck it rained heavily in the night,so that the horses had plenty of wet grass,and I caught the rain in my slicker,and so had enough water for myself.Personally,Ihave but once been as long as twenty-six hours without water.
The party pitched their permanent camp in a canyon of the Brazos known as Canyon Blanco.The last few days of their journey they travelled beside the river through a veritable hunter's paradise.The drought had forced all the animals to come to the larger water-courses,and the country was literally swarming with game.Every day,and all day long,the wagons travelled through the herds of antelopes that grazed on every side,while,whenever they approached the canyon brink,bands of deer started from the timber that fringed the river's course;often,even the deer wandered out on the prairie with the antelope.
Nor was the game shy;for the hunters,both red and white,followed only the buffaloes,until the huge,shaggy herds were destroyed,and the smaller beasts were in consequence but little molested.
Once my brother shot five antelopes from a single stand,when the party were short of fresh venison;he was out of sight and to leeward,and the antelopes seemed confused rather than alarmed at the rifle-reports and the fall of their companions.As was to be expected where game was so plenty,wolves and coyotes also abounded.At night they surrounded the camp,wailing and howling in a kind of shrieking chorus throughout the hours of darkness;one night they came up so close that the frightened horses had to be hobbled and guarded.On another occasion a large wolf actually crept into camp,where he was seized by the dogs,and the yelling,writhing knot of combatants rolled over one of the sleepers;finally,the long-toothed prowler managed to shake himself loose,and vanished in the gloom.One evening they were almost as much startled by a visit of a different kind.They were just finishing supper when an Indian stalked suddenly and silently out of the surrounding darkness,squatted down in the circle of firelight,remarked gravely,"Me Tonk,"and began helping himself from the stew.
He belonged to the friendly tribe of Tonkaways,so his hosts speedily recovered their equanimity;as for him,he had never lost his,and he sat eating by the fire until there was literally nothing left to eat.
The panic caused by his appearance was natural;for at that time the Comanches were a scourge to the Buffalo-hunters,ambushing them and raiding their camps;and several bloody fights had taken place.
Their camp had been pitched near a deep pool or water-hole.On both sides the bluffs rose like walls,and where they had crumbled and lost their sheerness,the vast buffalo herds,passing and repassing for countless generations,had worn furrowed trails so deep that the backs of the beasts were but little above the surrounding soil.In the bottom,and in places along the crests of the cliffs that hemmed in the canyon-like valley,there were groves of tangled trees,tenanted by great flocks of wild turkeys.Once my brother made two really remarkable shots at a pair of these great birds.It was at dusk,and they were flying directly overhead from one cliff to the other.He had in his hand a thirty-eight calibre Ballard rifle,and,as the gobblers winged their way heavily by,he brought both down with two successive bullets.This was of course mainly a piece of mere luck;but it meant good shooting,too.The Ballard was a very accurate,handy little weapon;it belonged to me,and was the first rifle I ever owned or used.With it I had once killed a deer,the only specimen of large game I had then shot;and I presented the rifle to my brother when he went to Texas.In our happy ignorance we deemed it quite good enough for Buffalo or anything else;but out on the plains my brother soon found himself forced to procure a heavier and more deadly weapon.
