22 chapters
8 hour read
Selected Chapters
22 chapters
The Border and the Buffalo
The Border and the Buffalo
AN UNTOLD STORY OF THE SOUTHWEST PLAINS The Bloody Border of Missouri and Kansas. The Story of the Slaughter of the Buffalo. Westward among the Big Game and Wild Tribes. A STORY OF MOUNTAIN AND PLAIN BY JOHN R. COOK MONOTYPED AND PRINTED By CRANE & COMPANY TOPEKA, KANSAS 1907 Copyrighted January, 1907, By John R. Cook . All rights reserved. The Border and the Buffalo BY JOHN R. COOK Especially dedicated to my crippled wife, who patiently assisted and encouraged me to write this book; and
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
In presenting these Reminiscences to the reader the author wishes to say that they were written and compiled by an uneducated man, who is now 63 years of age, with no pretensions to literary attainments, having a very meager knowledge of the common-school branches. In placing these recollections in book form there is an endeavor all along the line to state the facts as they occurred to me. The tragic deaths seen by the author in dance-hall and saloon have been omitted, in this work. But to that
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
I was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, on the 19th of December, 1844. Father moved his family to Lawrence, Kansas, in the spring of 1857. That summer we occupied the historical log cabin that J. H. Lane and Gaius Jenkins had trouble over,—resulting in the tragic death of the latter. Shortly prior to the killing of Jenkins, we moved to Peru, Indiana, where we remained until the latter part of March, 1861, when the family returned to Kansas. Myself and oldest brother traveled overland by team and wagon
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
Early Settlements of Southeast Kansas.—Texas Cattle Fever Trouble.—The Osage Indians and Firewater.—Poor Mrs. Bennett.—How Terwilliger's Cattle Stampeded.—Why the Curtises Moved On.—The Odens Murder Parker.—Parker Was Avenged.—Jane Heaton and Her Smith & Wesson Revolver.—What Became of the Benders. In 1867 I went to Labette county, and located on 160 acres of land three miles from where the notorious Bender family committed their horrible murders in 1873. Shortly after locating, together
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
Early in the spring of 1874 I started for Santa Fé, New Mexico, stopping off at Granada, Colorado, for a short time. Granada was at that time the end of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. From Granada I went to Las Animas, and traveled over the Dry Cimarron route, through Rule cañon, on over the Raton mountains, through Dick Hooten pass, and on into Las Vegas, New Mexico, where I arrived in May. There I fell in company with the Eighth United States regulars, whose commanding offic
18 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
My earthly possessions at this time consisted of two pairs of woolen blankets, one large, heavy, water-proof Navajo blanket, one bright, gaudy serape, a buffalo-hair pillow, two suits of underclothes, two navy-blue overshirts, an extra pair of pants, an overcoat, and an undercoat. I told the Mexican that could speak English that "I would go and see those men and try to get in with them, and go on farther east toward Fort Elliott." I had $96.60 in my purse. I took from the sack that contained my
31 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
We moved that day down the river about ten miles. We camped in a hackberry and elm grove, at the mouth of a big coulée. This term is used more in the Dakotas than in Texas, meaning ravine, draw, cañon, arroyo,—all these terms being nearly synonymous. It was an ideal camping-ground. Plenty of wood, water, grass, and protection from storms. I commenced at once to make myself useful. Buck and his father's family camped separately. Each outfit had a good tent; Buck's tent was ten by twelve feet, his
51 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
Dockum and I for the first few days worked together. We two skinned thirty-three of this killing. Hadley and Cyrus worked together for a short time. It was now a busy time. Some days thirty and forty-odd hides, then a good day with eighty-five, and one day in February, one hundred and seventy-one; then again the same month, 203; and these 203 were killed on less than ten acres of ground. My experience with the Woods had helped me. In starting I had learned to keep my knives in good order and how
44 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
The freighters were instructed to look for these stakes after leaving Quinn's. Five days after Charlie's arrival, the freight teams arrived in camp. Each wagon had on a big rack, built like hay-racks. The hides were piled in this rack with a lap and boomed down tight like a load of hay. I have seen 200 bull-hides piled on one wagon. A dry bull-hide, as a rule, would weigh about fifty pounds. So the reader may have some idea of a train of six yokes of oxen to the team, lead and trail wagon to eac
42 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
We hunters were optimistic enough to predict a wonderful future for a region of such delightful climate and such fertile soil. In March we sold our hides to Charles Rath, who sent his agent, George West, to follow up the hunters with two large freight trains to bring back the hides they got that winter. But a dozen such trains could not haul the hides that the hunters had in their many camps west from the one-hundredth meridian to the New Mexico line and south to the Brazos river. It was a red-l
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
I ran down the hill. Remounting, I said, "Come on, boys." Down the cañon we went, meeting the expedition. After a brief report, Campbell said: "We must get him, or he will ride on down, strike our trail, and give the whole thing away." He added: "Say, Keyes, you are an Injun. Can't you get that fellow?" Then he ordered Freed "to go up on the hill and watch him." When he got up on the hill, which was only a few rods from us, he said to us, "Now, boys, keep perfectly quiet. He is in a fox trot, go
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
When the ranchmen heard of our predicament, they would not sell us horses, but would give every man a mount who had lost stock. Besides this, they wrote out and presented us with a "bill of sale" for every horse we could get from the Indians bearing their brands. In addition to all this, they made us a tender of money for supplies. This they did for a two-fold reason: one was their time-honored generosity; the other was because so long as we were roaming the Plains, seeking the opportunity we so
39 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
"Yes, Al, we are all right." Soon we came to where we could see down into the depression where the briny salt lake was in front and two miles east of the Casa Amarilla proper. "Well," said Al, "if my tongue was not so thick I'd whistle and sing a song." Turning his horse to the left he said, "Let's go this way and strike the upper water-hole." I said "No." The Casa Amarilla and the upper water-hole were less than a mile apart, but I was afraid we might miss the upper one by going too far west, a
31 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
A PEN SKETCH OF SOL. REES, As Taken From the Man's Lips by the Author, Who First Met Him in the Panhandle of Texas, in 1876. "I was born in Delaware county, Indiana, on the 21st day of October, 1847. I enlisted in Co. E., 147th Indiana Regiment, March 5th, 1865. But as that greatest of modern wars was near its close, I did not even see the big end of the last of it. I came to Kansas in 1866, stopping for a time in the old Delaware Indian Reserve, southwest of Fort Leavenworth. From among the Del
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
SOME OF "WILD BILL'S" RECOLLECTIONS. The author visited him at his home in Nebraska, in the spring of 1907. The noted hunter, Indian fighter, and scout, Sol. Rees, took me from Jennings, Kansas, to the home of Kress, near Hastings, Nebr., generously defraying the expenses. The three of us separated in Texas in the spring of 1878; and after twenty-nine years of neither hearing from nor seeing each other, we held a reunion of the "Forlorn Hope;" and it did my heart good to once more meet this big,
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
M. V. DAILY, Soldier, Indian Fighter, Buffalo-Hunter, and Homesteader. His picture shows the loss of his trigger finger; done by Missouri bushwhackers. Yet he trained the middle finger to pull trigger, and told the author, in 1907, that he could shoot just as well as ever. When the wild plains Indians, armed with lances, bows and arrows, attacked a stage-coach, in 1865, on the Arkansas river, this man Daily was driving the six mules drawing the coach, which had sixty arrows imbedded in it; and a
57 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
STAMPEDE OF THE WHEEL-OXEN.
STAMPEDE OF THE WHEEL-OXEN.
The month of February, 1875, when I was in the employ of Charles Hart, skinning buffaloes, I had an experience which was both amusing and embarrassing. As we were en route down from the Panhandle of Texas to the Brazos hunting-grounds, we passed by an abandoned Government wagon. It was on a sandy stretch of ground between South Pease river and a prong of the Salt Fork of the Brazos. After we had arrived where we did our principal hunting that winter and spring, Hadley, the freighter (he who afte
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
FAVORITE HUNTING-GROUNDS.
FAVORITE HUNTING-GROUNDS.
Many hunters had their favorite hunting-grounds when the killing was at its height; during the years 1876-7. Frequently, when several outfits would chance to meet at some regular camping-ground en route to and from the great game park, they would discuss the variety and quantity of game at such-and-such places. But what I saw in what are now Howard and Mitchell counties, in Texas, will ever be indelibly impressed upon my mind. It was on the Red Fork of the Colorado and its tributaries. The time
6 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE UNSEEN TRAGEDY.
THE UNSEEN TRAGEDY.
The unseen tragedy occurred near the North Concho, where two brothers were encamped during the last winter of the big slaughter. The surviving brother's story was: "We were sitting in our camp, loading ammunition. It was about 10 A. M. when my brother said: "'There are two old stub-horned bulls going up the ravine that we found the Indian skeleton in. I'll take my gun and head them off at the top of the Divide, and kill them.' "He cut across, trotting along afoot, about three-quarters of a mile,
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
BELLFIELD AND THE DRIED APPLES.
BELLFIELD AND THE DRIED APPLES.
During the time that many of the camps banded together for mutual protection, and during the Indian raids of 1877, George Bellfield, of Adobe Walls and Casa Amarilla notoriety, was camped upon a tributary of the Colorado river. Joe Hoard, Joe Rutledge and Frank Lewis each joined him. They and George mutually agreed to camp together. None of them having a camp helper at the time, it was agreed among them to take "turn about" in doing the cooking. It must be remembered that George was of Teutonic
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
AN INCIDENT OF BEN JACKSON'S EXPERIENCE.
AN INCIDENT OF BEN JACKSON'S EXPERIENCE.
Most all the big-game hunters were men of adventure. They loved the wild, uninhabited region of the great Southwest. Nearly all of them had read of Daniel Boone wandering alone in the wilds of the then uninhabited lands east of the Mississippi. Most of these men had passed through the War of the Rebellion, on one side or the other. They were of necessity self-reliant, and could and did meet every emergency as a matter of course. Take the incident of Ben Jackson. He left his lonely camp, 200 mile
3 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
MY KANSAS QUEEN.
MY KANSAS QUEEN.
John Guerine , Author. ...
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter