Contents ▼▲
Front Matter The Fur Traders Why I Am Not a Fur Trader Plan For the Future An Inquisitive Stranger An Unexpected Proposition I Set Out as a Guide John Mitchell's Outfit Making the Bargain We Leave St. Louis Hardships Encountered The Camp at Independence A Frontier Town The Start from Independence Careless Travelers Overrun by Wild Horses Searching for Live Stock Abandoning Missing Animals Meeting with Other Emigrants A Tempest Facing the Indians Teaching the Pawnees The Pawnee Village A Bold Demand I Gain Credit as a Guide A Difficult Crossing Wash Day Indian Pictures A Plague of Wood Ticks Another Tempest Cattle Stampeded Again Difficult Traveling Colonel Kearny's Dragoons Disagreeable Visitors Driving Away the Indians Turkey Hunting Eager Hunters Antelope Country Shooting Antelopes A Pawnee Visitor The Pawnees Frighten Us Defending Ourselves Scarcity of Fuel Lame Oxen An Army of Emigrants The Buffalo Country Hunting Buffaloes My Mother's Advice Ash Hollow Post Office New Comrades Fort Laramie A Sioux Encampment Indians on the March The Fourth of July Multitudes of Buffaloes We Meet Colonel Kearny Across the Divide Fort Bridger Trading at Fort Hall Thievish Snakes The Hot Springs Falls of the Snake River Signs of the Indians Beset with Danger Hunger and Thirst Nearly Exhausted Arrival at Fort Boise On the Trail Once More Cayuse Indians The Columbla River An Indian Ferry The Dalles of the Columbia Our Live Stock My Work as Guide Ended I Become a Farmer

Antoine of Oregon - James Otis




Hunting Buffaloes

It was a difficult matter to restrain the hunters who were bent on starting off on the instant, believing they could kill a buffalo with but little effort, if one came within range.

To bring a buffalo down, one must shoot him in the lungs. To hit the skull is much like sending a bullet against a rock, for it has no other effect than to excite the animal, and oftentimes even then not very much. Of course if a hunter can send a ball through the brute's heart, that settles the matter, but it is a difficult shot.

I did my best to explain how they ought to shoot in order to kill, and then, finding they were not inclined to heed my words, I proposed that we set off, each going his own way and doing the work after his own fashion.

It caused me to smile when I saw those men creeping up on some old bull, whose flesh was so dry and tough that none save a starving man would eat it; but they seemed to think it was size that counted.

Knowing that now was the time when I could again profit by my experience as a hunter and trapper, I went off in chase of a couple of young cows, and within thirty minutes had them stretched out on the prairie. Meanwhile I believe that no less than a hundred shots had been fired by the other members of the company; but I failed to see that any of them had been successful.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

John Mitchell and one of the men who went out with him succeeded in killing an old bull, and although during three hours of that forenoon there were hundreds of buffaloes in sight, all our company took from that vast herd were the two cows I had killed and the tough old fellow that had fallen under John Mitchell's rifle.

Because Susan's father did not call upon me for advice as to how his share of the game should be cut up ready for cooking, I held my peace, but set about taking the flesh from each side of the spine, from the shoulders to the rump, of the two animals I had killed. Afterward I cut out the tongue and the hump ribs, while those two men were hacking at their game, apparently believing his flesh should be treated after the same manner as that of a stall-fed ox.

While I was making ready some of the hump ribs for roasting, my mother came to my side, saying, as she pointed to our companions:—