CHAPTER VIII
A BUFFALO STORY
Two days later Jack, pretty tired and riding a tired horse, came intocamp after a long day, and was delighted to see Hugh standing by thecook fire, as usual smoking his pipe. Jack shouted a greeting and Hughwaved his pipe in salutation, and a moment later when the saddle hadbeen thrown on the ground, and the tired horse was rolling, the twoshook hands.
"Well," exclaimed Jack, "what's the news? Did anything happen to you onyour way back with the cattle?"
"No," answered Hugh; "we just pushed 'em along as fast as wecomfortably could, brought 'em to camp late at night, pretty tired, anddidn't bother to bed 'em down or watch 'em. They got in hungry, andas soon as they had eaten a plenty they lay down and stayed down allnight. When we got within five or six miles of the ranch I sent Rube inahead and pushed the cattle on myself, and before very long your Uncleand Joe came out and we drove the herd down below the little lake andturned 'em loose there. That was yesterday afternoon pretty early. Rubeand I went up to the bunk-house and gossiped a while with Mr. Sturgis,and then after we had had something to eat, we turned around and rodeuntil dark and then camped, and came on here to-day."
"That was a good quiet trip," said Jack. "I am glad that nothing badhappened. There was no reason why anything should happen, for thesecattle are almost on their own range; and they shouldn't be wild oruneasy. What's the news back at the ranch, Hugh? Did Uncle Will, orJoe, have anything special to talk about?"
"Not a thing," was the reply. "It's just as quiet there as can be.Joe's 'tending to his stock, what little of it there is there, and Mr.Sturgis, I reckon, just reads and writes. By the way, though, he didtell me that he went up on the mountains back of the house the otherday and killed a yearling for meat. He said there were lots of elkthere--big bunches of cows and calves. When I told him I was comingright back here, he sat down and wrote to you and asked me to take theletter along with two or three others that had come for you. You see,he sent Joe into the railroad for mail only two or three days ago."
Jack took the letters, and presently went off to read them. Two werefrom his father and mother, in New York, and one from his uncle. By thetime he had finished reading them, supper was ready and the boys werecrowding around the fire, filling their plates and cups.
After supper, Hugh, Joe and Jack were sitting together near the cookfire, Hugh smoking and the boys slapping viciously at the mosquitoes,which were pretty bad.
"I saw one thing to-day, son," said Hugh, "that interested me a little,and that was a buffalo carcass."
"Why, Hugh," exclaimed Jack, "I didn't know there were any buffaloabout here. Of course, I've heard that there is a little bunch up inthe Rattlesnake Mountains, but I've never seen any sign down this way."
"No," returned Hugh; "I don't guess there are any buffalo around here.The carcass to-day is the first I've seen for six or seven years. Iremember about the time you first came out to the ranch we ran acrossa buffalo that had been killed not very long before. I figured that ithad wandered out from the Rattlesnake Mountains and crossed the Platte,but I never knew what had killed it. I don't know what killed this onethat I found to-day. It was killed this spring sometime, but had beendead too long for me to find out much about it. I wouldn't be surprisedif there were a very few buffalo up in the Rattlesnake hills; and everynow and then, if one comes out and goes down to the Platte River,somebody takes a shot or two at it, and it gets killed. I haven't heardof anybody killing a buffalo around here for a good many years.
"I reckon I've told you, son, about what Uncle Jack Robinson used tosay about buffalo on the Laramie Plains, and in this high country,away back long before I came out here, and in fact I guess when UncleJack was quite a young man--anyway, not more than a middle-aged man.He said that in his young days, when he first came into the country,the Laramie Plains and all this high country was full of buffalo, butthat one winter there came a terrible snowstorm without any wind, andthe snow lay four or five feet deep on the ground. After this snowcame a change of weather, either a big thaw or a warm rain, and thena freeze, and the whole country was crusted over so that none of theanimals could get down to the grass to feed. That winter, Uncle Jacksaid, killed just about everything in the country and, among the otherthings, the buffalo. He said that since that time there never had beenany buffalo on the Laramie Plains, or in this high country. I alwaysfigured from what he told me that this big storm must have come in thewinter of 1839-40. Uncle Jack said that for years after that it washard to find any game up in this country, but, of course, as time wenton the deer and the elk and the antelope got plentiful again, but thebuffalo never came back."
"I suppose the fact is, Hugh," said Jack, "that by that time the peopleon the plains were killing them so that they had no chance to work backinto the mountains."
"Likely that was so," assented Hugh.
"There's another thing about buffalo I want to ask you," said Jack;"though I think you've told me about it before. Some of the old bookstalk, as I remember it, about buffalo spending the summer up in thenorth, and then migrating south in the fall, spending the winter downin Texas or Mexico, and then going back again when spring came. I'mpretty sure you told me once that there was never anything like this."
"No," answered Hugh, "there never was; and if you'll think about ita little bit you'll see there couldn't be. It's a long way from theCanada line down to Mexico, and just as far back again. If the buffalomade journeys like that spring and fall, they'd never have time to doanything else, and they sure would never be fat. Of course buffaloshifted their ranges more or less, spring and fall. They'd move upinto the high country on the flanks of the mountains, and often upmountain valleys in summer, and then in fall they'd drift east on tothe prairie and get into breaks or broken country of one kind andanother, and stop there. Sometimes they'd make quite long journeys andit would be hard for the Indians to find them, but they never startedoff to travel a thousand miles or so to avoid cold weather, and thenturned round and came back to avoid hot weather.
"The buffalo didn't mind the cold very much; on the other hand, theylike shelter in the worst weather. I've seen places on the flanks ofthe mountains in the broken country where the buffalo wintered--placesthey used to go to for shelter in the worst storms--where you wouldfind the dung four or five feet deep. I remember one such place in alittle side ravine running into a draw that goes down into the Rosebud,where I took the trouble to dig down into the dry dung, and I made ahole half as deep as I am tall, and didn't get to the bottom then. Thiswas a sheltered place under thick pine trees, and all the signs showedthat the buffalo used to gather there to get out of the wind and snow,and stand there pretty nearly as warm as they would be in a barn. Rightwithin half a mile there was the best kind of feed."
"Don't you remember, Hugh," interrupted Jack, "that year we went up tothe head of the St. Mary's River, how you showed me the place where thesheep used to come down and stand in winter?"
"Sure," said Hugh. "That's another sort of an animal, but it showswhat I've said to you before, that all animals, except those thatare hunting other animals, are very likely to live in a small rangeof country, and not to get away from it except at some change of theseasons, or when they are driven away. It's just the same with rangestock--cows or horses. You ask Joe here, and I reckon he'll tell youthe same thing."
"That's so," asserted Joe. "Everybody knows that a few horses will stopin a particular place and live there all through the summer, or allthrough the winter; they always drink at the same stream; they alwaysfeed about the same place; they go up on the same high point to standand look. It's something like that, too, with the cattle; and I reckonit's that way with all animals."
"That's what I believe," said Hugh; "and I can tell you a story aboutsomething that I saw once, and that plenty of other people saw too,that seems to me to prove it.
"In the fall of 1866 I was working for the government, sort of halfscout and half general handy ma
n, and went with Lieutenant Stouch--amighty fine officer he was--down into Kansas to build up old FortFletcher, which was on the north fork of Big Creek, and about sixteenmiles below Fort Hayes.
"It was nice, bright, cool fall weather, and when we got to the placethat had been picked out for the Fort, and went into camp, we saw quitea bunch of buffalo feeding in the stream bottom, hardly more than halfa mile above us. Of course the country then was full of buffalo, andthis was one of their great ranges. I suppose there must have beeneight or nine hundred in this bunch.
"When Lieutenant Stouch saw this herd, he had what always struck meas a mighty smart thought, and a thought too that showed that he knewa whole lot about animals, and about the plains country; and yet hehadn't been out there very long, because the war was only just overand he'd fought through the war. It occurred to him not to meddle withthese buffalo and that just as long as they stopped where they were, hecould get fresh meat for his command with mighty little trouble. So hegave orders to the soldiers not to hunt up the creek, but to do theirhunting downstream, and especially not to do anything to frighten thesebuffalo.
"He picked out a man and sent him to go up the creek to kill a buffalo,but told him not to show himself before he shot, nor after; just tokill the cow and then stay there hid, until a wagon came up for themeat. The man obeyed orders. When he fired, the buffalo he had shot atran a few steps, and then stopped and lay down. Those nearest to itgave a jump or two and looked around, but as they saw no one they wenton feeding.
"They were watching in camp, and when they saw what had happened theysent out a wagon to bring in the meat, and as it drove up slowly to theplace, the buffalo near it just walked out of the way. The dead animalwas butchered and loaded into the wagon and brought back to camp.
"This happened every day. Nothing occurred to scare the buffalo. Theygot used to seeing the people at work on the buildings and got used tothe wagons.
"After a while, a couple more companies of soldiers came to the post;one company of cavalry and one of infantry. Lieutenant Stouch toldthe officers what he had been doing, and asked them to follow out thesame plan. They did so, and the buffalo stopped right there. This wenton until well into the winter, when one day in the morning LieutenantStouch sent for me and told me that a sergeant who had just come infrom a scout had reported that he had met our buffalo herd travelingup the creek about fifteen miles distant. The Lieutenant told me hebelieved that these buffalo could be brought back, and asked me what Ithought about it. I told him I didn't know, but they ought to be mightytame, and I believed that they could just quietly be driven back.
"'Well, Johnson,' he said to me, 'I believe so too, and we're going totry it.'
"He took about twenty-five soldiers, and three or four of the officerswent along, and we rode off up the creek, and after a while passed theherd and went down into the valley above it. There we scattered outall the way across the bottom like skirmishers, and commenced to walkslowly toward the buffalo. When they first saw us they stood and lookedfor quite a long time, and I thought it was mighty uncertain whetherthey would drive or whether they would run off over the bluffs, butafter a little those that were nearest to us turned around and began tofeed down the valley, working back the way they had come, and beforenight we had the bunch back on its old feeding ground just above thepost, and when it got there we rode out of the valley and round overthe hills to camp.
"That bunch of buffalo stayed there for two months longer, and for allI know they would have been there yet, if it hadn't been that, along inApril, the Seventh Cavalry, under General Custer, came into the postfor supplies, and some of his command ran into those buffalo and chasedthem to kill meat for the command, and they scattered out and nevercame back again.
"That bunch of buffalo stayed there in that one place for about sixmonths, not scared, although animals enough were killed out of it tosupply a hundred and fifty officers and men with fresh meat during allthat time. I reckon there was an animal killed every day or two; onlythey were killed in a sensible way and the herd was never frightened."
"Well, well," said Joe; "that seems to me one of the strangest things Iever heard of; and it just shows how near buffalo are to being cattle.You can imagine a thing of that kind happening to a bunch of cows, butit's new to me that it could happen to buffalo."
"It seems to me," replied Hugh, "that it shows that wild animals don'tspend all their time wandering over the country, as most people thinkthey do, but each set of animals has some little range of countrythat's like home to them."
"Yes," said Jack, "I guess that's the fact; and yet I believe mostpeople don't understand it at all. I've heard my uncle say the samething about wild animals, and about some kinds of birds. I mean birdslike partridges and quail, that don't go south in winter, the way mostbirds do."
"Well," exclaimed Hugh, "the fact is that most people don't knowanything at all about how wild animals live, and of course they can'thave right ideas about 'em. But here I've taken a whole lot of sleepingtime talking to you boys about animals! We'd better quit now and turnin."