I have just been reading a communication from Dr. Carver. I knew Carver quite well and was at his place in 1873-4-5. I was a buffalo hunter and trapper. Carver hunted altogether on horseback, but the regular buffalo hunters, or hide hunters, as they were sometimes called, killed their game by what we called the still-hunt, that is, on foot. I always aimed to get within three or four hundred yards of the herds, and by firing a few times with my long range Sharp’s rifle, break the backs of two or three of the old cows that were leaders. As they crawled around on their front feet the other buffalos would gather about them in alarm and curiosity, which enabled us to approach a little closer, getting what the hunters called a “stand.” I have frequently killed as many as forty buffalo at one stand, usually firing about three shots for each hide. This was considered good work. Sometimes we had to take to our heels, as many wounded buffalo would be on all sides, and they were very dangerous. We called them “spike bulls.” We always aimed to kill all the bulls, as their hides were worth a dollar more than those of the cows, the average value of a bull hide in 1875 being $2.15. Forty bull hides made a good load. It cost us seven cents for ammunition every shot we fired, and when I say that I kept an account until I had used $2,200 worth of ammunition in killing 5,000 buffalo and other game, my readers may be incredulous. J. N. Dubois, a prominent hide buyer of Kansas City, told me at Buffalo, on the Kansas Pacific railroad, in 1874, that during ten months of that year 18,000 hides per day were marketed, with 500 outfits in the field, making thirty-six buffalo killed per day by each outfit. Carver is right. Had we foreseen how rapidly the buffalo would be exterminated and how valuable their hides would soon become, we might have made our fortunes. The car­casses that were left rotting on the plains by the millions might also have been utilized. There were a few meat-drying concerns, but they did not appear to be a success.
   All kinds of men were in the buffalo hunting business, some for profit and others for sport. Wash Reasoner, a Kansas senator, was quite a sport in that line, while preachers, lawyers, roughs and toughs all met on a common level to slaughter these noble animals. I have seen General Phil Sheridan forsake the company of aristocratic military attaches to share a meal of buffalo tongue and brains with Miller and Lamb’s hunting outfit. Peak and Campbell were the largest outfit on the plains, working from thirty-five to forty men.
  “The Slaughter Pen,” taking its name from the great number of buffalo killed in that vicinity, on the Arkansas river, was the center of the range. There were comparatively few hides sold along the line of the Union Pacific railway, although vast herds existed in the Platte valley long after the build­ing of that road. The Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, accompanied by a party of American officers and others, spent a short time south of the Platte river, a part of the time engaged in buffalo hunting. About the same time Dr. Carver, Buffalo Bill and assistants were trying to catch live buffalo to be shipped to a man at Niagara Falls. They finally succeeded in getting one old bull across the Platte river, after which they gave up the job.
   One would hardly believe at this day that no longer ago than 1874 there were countless thousands of buffalo roaming over the valley of the Republican river. Their tramp shook the earth like the tread of a vast army, and in crossing the river they made a continuous roar mingled with a low rumbling “m-o-o,” that sounded like an approaching storm of the early Nebraska type.
   The professional buffalo hunter was a peculiar being, and had some char­acteristics that distinguished him from all the rest of the world. When talk­ing to you he would invariably be scratching his leg with one hand and rub­bing his side with the other elbow, as if by perpetual motion he could keep quiet what he called “buffalo mange,” or, in other words, “line backs.” Dur­ing this operation he would be telling you how, that morning, he had run onto a herd of buffalo, killed forty of them, slipped up to an old bull and cut his hamstrings, etc.
There were certain established rules governing buffalo hunting which were lived up to by common consent, and were never violated by a regular buffalo hunter. For instance, if an outfit was camped upon the head of some stream, another outfit would never camp above it, even if it had to procure water by digging in the ground, for in so doing it would interfere with the buffalo coming into the water. When camped along a stream the outfits always took care to be at least a mile apart.
   When the buffalo came north of the Kansas Pacific railroad it would be some time before the hunters would follow. Everything would be quiet along the Republican, the Sapa, Red Willow, Chief creek and other streams, and the intermediate country would soon be black with the immense herds. Some still morning the decisive report of a Sharp’s or a Remington would be heard, and by noon there would be a continuous fusillade up and down the various streams. By night the adjoining hills would be dotted with hundreds of buffalo carcasses glistening in the setting sun, robbed of their hides by the army of western civilizers. Each outfit had its hunter for each day. He mounted his horse in the morning and started out, the balance of the camp waiting until they heard him firing, then with a wagon the skinners followed the sound of the gun. They became so expert in recognizing the reports of the rifles of the different hunters that they always knew just where their particular hunter was working. When the hides had been hauled into the camp they were stacked up and the outfit put in their time loading shells for the next day’s hunt.

Parc de Launay.

   At one time a party of Utes came near our camp on a hunting trip and Rome of the young bucks tried to stampede our horses, of which we had six. Failing to scare them otherwise, they began firing arrows at them. We did not propose to put up with this impudence, so we got out and prepared to defend ourselves. One of our party, being a little hasty, was on the point of firing on the Utes, when George Washington, an old chief, rode up and ordered them away, thus averting what might have been serious trouble. Near the same time Sitting Bull, who had secured a permit from the govern­ment, came down to hunt, accompanied by about a hundred young Sioux. South of Julesburg the young Indians came across a hunter’s camp with only one man in it. They pounded him with their bows until he thought he would be killed and then proceeded to cut his furs into pieces. The hunter backed into his dugout and got his “Big Fifty” and was about to string a dozen or so of his tormentors on a bullet, when up comes Sitting Bull. He went after the bucks with his bow, cracking their heads right and left, and killing two of them with his revolver. He subsequently made the young men kill and bring to the hunter the same number of hides they had destroyed, besides giving him two horses.
   The name of the hunter referred to above was McGuire. He was after­wards murdered on the Frenchman creek, fifty miles southeast of Julesburg, by a man named Dodge, who had followed him from Arkansas. Dodge was arrested and tried and found guilty. His attorneys made a motion for a new trial and Dodge was kept in the jail at Nebraska City. It is said that while Dodge was in jail there that a brother of McGuire secured a position as watch­man at the jail, where he killed Dodge one night, claiming that the prisoner was trying to escape. There were comparatively few cases of this kind on the range, and none by regular buffalo hunters.
   Sometimes hide thieves followed us and took skins that had been piled up while the hunters were following the herd. These fellows frequently met with disaster by the unexpected return of the owners of the hides. Nearly all of the carousing done around gambling holes on the frontier and laid to buffalo hunters was done by sharks and thieves who followed in the wake of the regular and orderly buffalo hunter.
   The Indians made considerable trouble for some of the buffalo hunters, although our outfit fared very well in that respect. Upon one occasion my two brothers and myself were trapping on Indian creek, when a party of seventy-five Sioux passed through and struck our camp. They made me cook dinner for them, and while I was at work a number of them danced around me with their arrows drawn tightly and pointed toward me in a manner that made me exceedingly nervous. They ate everything in sight, and you may believe we felt thankful that they let us off even thus easy. An Indian by the name of Big Blue used to come up on the head of the Republican river to hunt, and in 1872 three intermediate Sioux chiefs came to his camp. A trapper known as Nebraska Wild Bill, and his partner, killed the three Sioux, Whistler, chief of the cut-off band of the Ogalallas, Fat Badger and Stinking Hand. This outrage was committed in the fall. The winter following my brothers and myself trapped on the Stinking Water, and the Whistler band was near us all winter, but they never molested us. They knew who killed the chiefs, and Nebraska Wild Bill never dared come up on the Republican after that [there are numerous versions of the killing of Whistler and his two companions while they were attempting to obtain food from two hunters – most involve Mortimer N. “Wild Bill” Kress and John C. “Jack” Ralston as the pair and one account has William C. Miller claiming he killed the three Indians alone2].

    Hank Clifford, a trader, John R. King, myself and brothers, were about the first settlers of what is now Red Willow county. King was an old soldier of the regular army, and a better shot with a needle gun would be hard to find. He professed great friendship for the Sioux, but they attacked him on Pumpkin creek upon one occasion and got the worst of it. He after­wards told me he had killed thirteen of them, and I do not doubt it. They crippled him for life, and his finger nails were worn off until they bled, digging into a bank for protection. After he had the Indians routed he went sixteen miles on one leg, with his gun for a crutch. The Indians captured his furs, team and camping outfit. King afterwards received pay from the government for the loss of his property.
   In 1867 Lieutenant Williams and a party of sixteen government sur­veyors were missing. In 1869 I was engaged in mowing hay four miles from Indianola, on the south side of the Republican river. I ran into what proved to be an eight-inch tracing compass. It was buried in the sod with one sight sticking out. I also found there a heavy rifle with “Lieutenant Williams” engraved on the brass side plate. Many a trapping and hunting outfit, to my certain knowledge, came up missing in that part of the country about that time. Two men trapping on Big Timber creek were ran out by the Sioux. They got away, but that was all, and the Indians got everything they had, including three baking powder cans full of arsenic. The men said they hoped the red devils would think it was baking powder and make some bread with it. Perhaps they did, but they likely tried it on a dog first.
   Three men, Carrothers, Doan and Rogers, were making quite a good thing about this time in the business of catching wild horses on the range south of Julesburg. When they found a herd they would follow it slowly and turn in some tame horses with bells on. In eight or ten days the whole herd would be so tame they could be easily corralled. Ned Buntline gives a description of the trained horses that perform in the Wild West shows and the marvelous performances of some of their riders, but some of the every-day exploits of common hunters on the plains in these early days far eclipsed anything that a Wild West show ever exhibited. We could not all be Codys, Wild Bills, Bloody Dicks, or Scar Faced Charleys, but some men who made no pretensions to great skill and who did not court notoriety did things that would sound well in a dime novel. In 1869 the soldiers had cap­tured a band of Sioux and were bringing them down the south side of the North Platte river. Another band of Sioux were following them up on the opposite side of the river, evidently watching for an opportunity to get some advantage of the troops or to aid any of the prisoners who might try to escape. When near Ash Bottom, and simultaneously with the arrival of the wild horse outfit referred to above, one of the Indians in charge of the soldiers jumped into the river and struck out for the north side, swimming and diving like a muskrat. The soldiers fired repeatedly at him, as his head appeared above the water, but missed him every time. He had almost reached the other shore when Rogers, the wild horse man, rode up, and, firing from the ground, shot the redskin through the head. The balance of the prisoners witnessed this exhibition of skill on the part of a man who made no preten­sions of skill with a gun, and from that time on Rogers was a marked man, and suffered the loss of horses and camping outfits a number of times at the hands of the Indians. He had to quit hunting, and learned that fair play, even with Indians, is good policy.

   In 1878 the Utes were camped thirty-five miles south of the Platte river and eighty miles from Greeley, Colorado. A hunting party of Sioux, headed by Sitting Bull, was camped at Julesburg, where they had seven or eight hundred lodges. I had a camp near the Utes. They made great preparations for war, but that was all there was of it. They were afraid, and the Sioux daresn’t. However, a party under Ute Charley and Ouray, the council chief, made a raid on the ponies of the Sioux at Julesburg. They had two horses apiece, and the boys who were to do the stampeding were securely tied to their ponies. It is said the Utes waded from island to island in descending the Platte river. They succeeded in running off about a thousand ponies, be­sides getting away with 400 of the best horses of the Sioux. I was at Kempton and Brush’s ranch, thirty-five miles from Julesburg, when the Sioux came up, following the Utes. They went no further than the top of a big bluff, four miles from the ranch. A few miles in advance of where they stood we could see the cloud of dust that indicated the position of the party with the stolen ponies. There were several hundred of the Sioux in full war paint, and also a number of squaws, who had probably been brought along to cook, for they certainly did some around the ranch that night and the following day, as squad after squad came in from the front to report to superiors. As far as I could see they were making a great show and accomplishing little. Twenty-­five white hunters could have made those Utes drop the horses in a hurry, but these several hundred cowardly Sioux did not dare to attack an enemy which they outnumbered ten to one. The Sioux ate up and took everything about the ranch. Among other delicacies, they cooked a number of skunks that had been poisoned for wolf bait, which my outfit had scattered up and down the river. We never learned whether the poisoned meat did any dam­age to the Sioux. It is hard to kill an Indian.
   Twenty-five miles south of the Platte is a high elevation called Cap Rock. In 1874 there were numbers of Indian skulls and bones scattered about the vicinity, the result of a massacre of Sioux by the Pawnees. The Sioux were exhausted from a rapid retreat from Carr’s troops. The Pawnees took ad­vantage of this and we have it from good authority that they killed 200 of their enemies. This massacre occurred in 1866. In 1874 the Pawnees were permitted by the government to go upon the Republican to hunt. When re­turning, and near where the town of Culbertson now stands, they saw a large herd of buffalo approaching their camp, which was secreted in a sort of canon. All the bucks that were able to do service were soon out after the big game, which led them a merry chase, while a band of Sioux, who had planned this trap which their hereditary enemies had so easily fallen into, rushed down into the camp of the Pawnees, where a sickening slaughter of old men, squaws and papooses took place, the number butchered being in all 184. Swift intelligence of the presence of the Sioux in their defenseless camp soon reached the hunters, but instead of rushing to the defense of their squaws and papooses, they flew the other way as fast as their ponies could carry them, while the Sioux retreated with equal haste in the opposite direc­tion. Three days later I visited the ground. In the meantime a heavy rain had washed the bodies of the Pawnee women and children into a wind row at the bottom of the gulch, a horrible example of Indian revenge and cruelty. The Sioux had waited since the massacre of 1866 to wreak vengeance on their enemies, and when they had accomplished the ghastly work they boasted of their prowess. The Pawnees were never seen in that region again, although in former days that was one of their favorite resorts. Our camp was but a few miles from the scene of the massacre, and we heard the firing, but paid little heed to it as something that did not concern us. Pawnee Killer (a Sioux) afterwards told me the Sioux drove the herd of buffalo down in order to draw the Pawnee men away from their camp.3 S

1 Chrisman, Harry E., Lost Trail of the Cimarron, Sage Books, Denver, 1961
2 Rosa, Joseph G., They Called Him Wild Bill: The Life and Adventures of James Butler Hickock, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1964
Johnson, Rolf, Happy As A Big Sunflower, Adventures in the West, 1876-1880, ed/intro by Richard E. Jensen, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2000; entry of July 20, 1877, p. 45.
3 Burgher, A.S., Hunting Buffalo on the Great Plains, S.D. Butcher’s Pioneer History of Custer County and Short Sketches of Early Days in Nebraska., Solomon D. Butcher & Ephraim S. Finch, Broken Bow, Nebraska, 1901, pp. 85-03