We had lots of fun sky-larking in our camp on Moore's Creek, but
spring was coming on, and it was our wish to establish a permanent
camp at the best possible place. Unconsciously, we were drawn to that
place as other men, long, long before us, had been drawn, and which we
reached by pulling right down the river bottom about twelve miles to
what was then called West Adobe Walls Creek but which is now called
Bent Creek.
The latter is a beautiful stream, clear and swift. About a mile from
its mouth stood the old ruins of the original Adobe Walls. Here we
stopped and camped for the night. We had heard of these ruins ever
since we had been in the Plains country. They were of great interest
to us, and we carefully examined them, wondering what men in such a
far-off day had ventured to establish themselves here, and why they
had done so. We were not acquainted with the history of the place. We
thought of Mexicans and different Indian tribes of the southwest. As a
matter of fact, there are the remains of villages and old burial
grounds on Wolf Creek in the Panhandle which men who claim to know
about such things declare are the remains of the easternmost extension
of the Pueblo civilization. I have no opinion in the matter.
[Illustration: _"Billy" Dixon's Log Homestead on Site of Original
Adobe Walls._]
When we first saw Adobe Walls, there were parts of walls still
standing, some being four or five feet high. The adobe bricks were in
an excellent state of preservation. Many different stories have been
told about this place and its origin. While I was hunting buffaloes in
southern Kansas I met up with a man named Charley Powell who had been
a soldier in the Third Cavalry. He told me that in 1863, when they
were going from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Fort Bascom, New Mexico, the
trail lay on the south of the Canadian, opposite Adobe Walls. The
soldiers crossed over and looked at the ruins. Even at that time none
of the buildings was standing.
Later, when I was serving as scout at Fort Elliott, Texas, I was
talking with General Hatch one day, and we fell to discussing the
Adobe Walls country. He told me that he passed up the Canadian in 1848
with a regiment of dragoons, going out west, and stopped to examine
these ruins. He said that only the broken walls were to be seen and
that there was much to indicate that the place long since had been
abandoned. On this expedition he was a second lieutenant; at the time
I talked with him he was Lieutenant Colonel of the Fourth United
States Cavalry, and in command at Fort Elliott, an old, gray-haired
man. He was shrewd and very industrious. He took pride in improving
Fort Elliott, and had a mania for using adobe bricks in the erection
of buildings. Employing Mexicans, who were past masters in the making
of these bricks, Colonel Hatch built stables large enough to hold
horses for three troops of cavalry. He put up so many adobe buildings
at Fort Elliott that finally he was called "Doby" Hatch.
It is probable that old Adobe Walls was built by Major William Bent,
in the first 40's or earlier, the year 1844 being possible. Major
Bent's son, George Bent, now living at Colony, Okla., made this
statement:
"Bent & Company built Adobe Walls, as it is called. I cannot find out
when it was built. It was a trading post to trade with the Comanches,
Kiowas and Prairie Apaches. Bent & Company traded for horses and mules
from the Indians. They sent their traders in summer time to trade for
this stock. The post was not occupied in winter, as the Company did
not trade for buffalo robes, as the trading post was too far from
Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River to haul the hides. These horses and
mules were driven to Missouri and sold; also, to the Platte Rivers, to
be sold to the emigrants. The Comanches, Kiowas and Apaches were rich
in horses and mules. They stole many in old Mexico and traded off the
wild ones very cheap. Bent & Company employed many Mexicans to break
these wild animals, after which the latter were sold to the whites."
The noted plainsman and Indian trader, John Smith, told George Bent
that together with five or six companions he made his escape from old
Adobe Walls, after it had been attacked by Comanches and Kiowas.
Even though it be true that old Adobe Walls was established by Major
William Bent and his associates, a tradition remains that they merely
seized upon a site that had been occupied at an even earlier day by
men of whom nothing is known, save that they are believed to have come
from the Spanish settlements in New Mexico. There are traditions of
buried treasure at Adobe Walls, and strangers have appeared there in
search of it. One of these treasure-hunters was an old gray-haired man
who came after the country had been settled. His story was that a pack
train loaded with gold and silver bullion had been attacked at this
place by Indians. In its extremity, the besieged party buried the
bullion. Only one or two members of the expedition escaped massacre,
among the slain being a Catholic priest.
The old man in search of the treasure was too feeble to do the
physical work of digging, and tried to hire men to work for him. He
was looked upon as slightly demented, and could get no assistance. He
departed without finding the buried fortune. Subsequently, his story
was revived, and men living in the locality made numerous excavations,
but found nothing.
The day after we camped on Bent Creek, several of the boys rode
northeast, to look over the country. Upon their return, they reported
that there was an excellent site for a permanent camp on the next
creek, about a mile and a half further on, so we pulled up the valley
and began unloading our wagons on the bare ground in a broad valley
where there was a pretty stream called East Adobe Walls Creek. This
was to become a spot memorable to all of us.
Myers & Leonard built a picket house twenty by sixty feet in size.
James Hanrahan put up a sod house, twenty-five by sixty, in which he
opened a saloon. Thomas O'Keefe built a blacksmith's shop of pickets,
fifteen feet square. Thus, a little town was sprouting in the
wilderness--a place where we could buy something to eat and wear,
something to drink, ammunition for our guns, and a place where our
wagons, so necessary in expeditions like ours, could be repaired.
While all this hammering and pounding and digging was going on, I
started with three companions and rode the country as far down as
where the present town of Clarendon, Texas, now stands. We were absent
about fifteen days, and upon our return we found the buildings about
finished. We did not see many buffaloes on this trip. Maybe the
buffaloes had scented Indians. We ranged as far east as Cantonment
Creek, and on its east prong encountered a few scattering bulls. The
season was too early for the cows and bulls to begin mating and
running together.
On Cantonment Creek we stopped at some seeping springs. A lone
cottonwood stood tall and gaunt among a few hackberries. I cut my name
on this lone tree. One of the men who was with me at that time was a
Frenchman, for whom we had no other name than "Frenchy," just as we
had single names for many other men in the Plains country. He was an
excellent cook, and I always thought he could broil buffalo steak
better than any other man I ever saw.
In returning to camp, we crossed Red Deer about where Miami, Texas,
now is, and camped at some water-holes. Heading northward we soon
struck the brakes of Tallahone, and followed the Tallahone down to its
mouth. This was a timbered creek with an abundance of running water.
Perch and catfish were so plentiful that enough to feed the whole camp
could be caught in a few minutes. Deer and wild turkeys were in sight
all along Tallahone, and there were numerous signs of beaver and
otter.
Here we crossed the Canadian at what for many years was the main
crossing in this part of the country, and followed along the north
side of the river to Adobe Walls.
During our absence from camp, Wright & Langton came down from Dodge
City with another outfit and built a sod house sixteen by twenty feet.
This firm bought buffalo hides and was engaged in general
merchandising. The business was in charge of James Langton.
The buildings were finished as rapidly as possible, and every man at
Adobe Walls who could be induced to engage in this kind of manual
labor was given a job and paid well for his services. Each building
had a big cottonwood ridge log, paralleled with smaller poles running
down the roof. The poles were covered with dirt and sod. For safety
and convenience in handling their stock, Myers & Leonard built a
stockade corral. This inclosure was made by setting big cottonwood
logs in the ground. The logs were hauled across the Canadian, from
Reynolds Creek, a distance of about six miles, and was a laborious
undertaking.
I had no liking for the monotony and restraint of camp life and was
impatient to be about my own business, which was to find a good
buffalo range and begin hunting. After remaining in camp two days, we
saddled and mounted again, to go up the Canadian as far west as Hill's
Creek. We crossed the river and followed the old Fort Bascom trail to
Antelope Creek, where we crossed over to the Arroya Bonita, on which
the LX Ranch afterwards established headquarters. The Arroya Bonita is
one of the prettiest streams in the Panhandle country, with a good
flow of water and lots of timber.
Here I struck the trail I had made during the previous winter, and
which I now followed back across the Canadian and thence north to
Grapevine Creek, where I camped two or three days. This was at the
edge of the Plains. At intervals we struck small bands of bulls as we
did all the way. Buffaloes were surprisingly scarce. Sometimes we
killed them, and at other times did not molest them. Generally, there
were from four to ten in a bunch. The scarcity of buffaloes rather
discouraged us, and we redoubled our efforts to locate a big herd. We
held to the east, keeping along the edge of the Plains and coming down
to the Canadian between Bugbee Canyon and Big Creek. Bugbee Canyon
received its name from the fact that Thomas Bugbee settled there in
1876. His was one of the first cow ranches established in the
Panhandle of Texas. Charles Goodnight, whom I met first in the fall of
1875, brought his cattle that year from Colorado to Palo Duro Canyon.
Mrs. Goodnight joined her husband in 1876.
We were in the Bugbee Canyon country in May, 1874. The season was
delightful. The air was fresh and invigorating, the grass was green,
flowers were blooming, the sky was clear, the sunshine pleasant, and a
feeling of joy and happiness everywhere. Those were splendid nights,
out there under the stars. The mornings came with dazzling splendor.
At this season sunrise on the Plains presented a scene of
magnificence. I always had the feeling that it came with a thunderous
sound.
When we struck Big Creek I noticed a patch of lamb's quarter (wild
greens), and I told the boys we would go into camp and cook a pot of
green, which we did. We ate greens to our hearts' content.
Searching out every point in the country, next day we followed an old
trail down to the Canadian valley, striking it at a high point,
afterwards known as Dixon's Point, on account of its being opposite
Dixon's Creek. We soon reached Adobe Walls.
All the buildings had been finished, and everybody was doing a good
business. Quite a number of hunters had come down from the north, and
a plain trail had been opened between Adobe Walls and Dodge City, a
hundred and fifty miles away. Freight outfits were making regular
trips between the two places.
All of us hunters acquainted with the habits of the buffalo knew that
the herds would soon be coming north from the Staked Plains region
where they had spent the winter. The spring had been unusually late,
which held back the buffaloes in their migration. There was nothing
for us to do but wait until the buffaloes were moved by that strange
impulse that twice annually caused them to change their home and
blacken the Plains with their countless, moving forms. We could lie
around camp or vary the monotony by going to Adobe Walls and joining
in the fun that was rampant at that place. Our amusements were mostly
card-playing, running horse-races, drinking whisky and shooting at
targets, the latter to improve our marksmanship.
All this soon got old to me, and about the last of May I pulled out
again. Crossing the Canadian at the mouth of White Deer Creek, I
followed the latter to its head and went out on the Plains, keeping
along their edge until I came to Dixon Creek. Here I found an ideal
camping place, with plenty of wood, grass and water. I decided to
build our permanent camp, and was soon industriously at work. I knew
by the signs that buffaloes had been through here, and it was certain
that they would soon be coming back.
I had two men with me, "Frenchy," whom I employed as a skinner, and
Charley Armitage, an agreeable fellow who had come from England. Those
Englishmen certainly loved the life of the frontier.
We had been here two or three days, when the expected happened.
Getting up one morning earlier than my companions, I chunked the fire
for breakfast, and stood waiting for it to begin blazing. Then a
familiar sound come rolling toward me from the Plains--a sound deep
and moving, not unlike the rumbling of a distant train passing over a
bridge. In an instant I knew what was at hand. I had often heard it. I
had been listening for it for days, even weeks.
Walking out on a high point near camp, I gazed eagerly toward the
horizon. I could see nothing save the vast undulating landscape. My
ears, however, had revealed to me what my eyes could not see. The
buffaloes were coming!
Hurrying back to camp, I shouted the good news to Armitage and
"Frenchy," rousing them from their sleep and telling them to hurry
breakfast. They lost no time in making coffee, frying meat and
browning a cake of bread. I saddled my horse by the time breakfast was
ready, and after eating hurriedly I sprang into my saddle and went
south at a gallop.
After I had ridden about five miles, I began striking small bunches of
buffalo bulls, all headed north and all moving. A further ride of
eight miles carried me out on the Plains. My muscles hardened and grew
warm at the sight. As far as the eye could reach, south, east and west
of me there was a solid mass of buffaloes--thousands upon thousands of
them--slowly moving toward the north.
The noise I had heard at early day-break was the bellowing of the
bulls. At this time of year--the breeding season--the bellowing of the
countless bulls was continuous, a deep, steady roar, that seemed to
reach to the clouds. It was kept up night and day, but seemed to be
deepest and plainest at early morning.
I was happy beyond measure, and turned my horse toward camp, hastening
at full speed to let my men know what I had found. Already, the
buffaloes were approaching the vicinity of my camp, and in sight of it
I shot thirty-five or forty, all bulls; the boys were soon busily at
work with their skinning knives. By night buffaloes were passing
within gunshot of our camp.
Business had now begun in earnest, and we would soon be enjoying a
steady income, to offset our winter's expenses. Where buffaloes were
as plentiful as they were here I could easily kill enough in a day to
keep ten skinners busily at work. I killed enough next day to keep
"Frenchy" and Armitage employed for several days, and went down to
Adobe Walls in a light wagon, to see if I could hire more skinners. I
found one man who would go with me, but for only a few days, until his
partner should return with a load of hides. All the other hunters had
heard the good news, and had pulled out for the buffalo range. Adobe
Walls was deserted, save for the merchants and their clerks. By
offering this man twenty-five cents a hide for skinning, I induced him
to go with me for a week or ten days.
On my way I had undertaken to pick out the most direct route from my
camp to Adobe Walls. Keeping on the divide between Dixon Creek and
Short Creek, I came to a stretch of very rough country late in the
evening, and finally reached a place where it was impossible to travel
further in a wagon. As darkness was falling, I unhooked my mules, Tobe
and Joe, and jumped astride old Tobe, followed some buffalo trails
down to Dixon Creek, near its mouth where grass and water were
abundant.
As this particular locality was new to me and darkness at hand, I
decided that I would camp there for the night. Picketing one of the
mules, I turned the other one loose. With a single blanket for my bed
and my coat for a pillow, I lay down for the night, and was soon sound
asleep.
No mercy was shown the buffaloes when I got back to camp from Adobe
Walls. I killed as many as my three men could handle, working them as
hard as they were willing to work. This was deadly business, without
sentiment; it was dollars against tenderheartedness, and dollars won.
When the man I had hired at Adobe Walls had worked his full time, I
hitched up and started back with him. When we reached the Canadian we
found her with her back up, smashing and banging things from side to
side--so deep and swollen that it would have been the height of
foolishness to attempt a crossing. We went on to White Deer Creek,
hoping to find a wider crossing, and by reason of it a shallower
bottom.
I waded the river in my search for a good footing, and decided finally
that we could cross by swimming the mules fifty or sixty yards. It was
our purpose to unhitch the mules and leave the wagon on the south side
of the river until the water had run down.
Our plans were quickly changed. At that moment two men from Adobe
Walls rode up and told us that two hunters had been killed by Indians
twenty-five miles down the river, on Chicken Creek, several days past.
Our informants were greatly excited, and were hurrying back to their
camp at the head of White Deer.
If the Indians were on the warpath, we knew it would be foolish to
leave our wagon, as they would destroy it beyond doubt, so we decided
to risk trying to take it across the river regardless of the wide
stretch of rolling water.
While men experienced in the trials of travel in the wilderness may
grow indifferent to danger, yet they never quite forget that danger
exists. This is especially true in crossing such streams as the South
Canadian and the Cimarron. These streams make the odds in their own
way and in their own favor. The man that ventures into them must rely
solely upon his own nerve, strength and horse sense.
Choosing a point on the opposite side of the river where we wished to
land, we drove in, hoping for the best. In a moment the swift current
caught us, and both mules were swimming. In water a mule has less
sense than a horse, and the ginger is soon knocked out of him if he
gets his ears full of water. Having smaller feet, the mule cannot
equal a horse in traversing quicksand.
After the mules had taken a few plunges, the current caught up our
wagon and whirled it over and over like a top. When I saw that the
mules would have to swim for it, I sprang into the water to help the
frightened animals, getting on their upper side and seizing the mule
nearest me by his bridle. In this way I was able to keep his head
above water. The other mule, terrified by its surroundings,
alternately rose and sank. We saw that if the wagon kept turning over,
the team might get drowned, so we cut the harness, and after the
greatest exertion got the mules ashore. The near mule lay down on the
sand and died without a struggle. It seemed ridiculous that the mule
should succumb after being taken from the water, yet there he lay. Old
Tobe was saved. The wagon drifted down stream about sixty yards and
lodged against the bank. We pulled it out of the river next day. Our
greatest misfortune was the loss of our guns.
When we lined up on the north side of the river we were a sorry
lot--two bedraggled, unarmed men and a water-logged mule three miles
from Adobe Walls, in danger of attack by Indians at any moment.
Ordinarily, I was not easily discouraged. This, however, was a jolt
from the shoulder. I stood in greatest need of my gun, a big "50." We
could dig out the wagon, but not the guns, and somewhere in the depths
of the Canadian they are rusting this very day.
We were a sorrowful pair as we started up the valley for Adobe Walls,
leading old Tobe and leaving old Joe to bleach on the Canadian sands.
Unwilling to let the other walk, neither of us would ride. I had lost
my hat in the river, and my clothing was plastered with mud and sand.
Upon coming in sight of Adobe Walls, we were quickly discovered, and
our disordered appearance convinced the men that we had been attacked
by Indians--possibly we were the only survivors of a desperate
encounter. We found Adobe Walls buzzing with talk about Indians. The
particulars of the killing of the men on Chicken Creek were now
learned. Their names were Dudley and Wallace. They were camped on the
south side of the creek near where the Ledrick brothers now have a
ranch. Dudley, Wallace and Joe Plummer were hunting together from this
camp. Plummer went to Adobe Walls for supplies. Upon his return he was
horrified to find the dead bodies of his two companions. Through the
breast of one had been driven a heavy wooden stake, pinning him to the
ground. Both were scalped, and otherwise mutilated in a shocking
manner.
Looking away from his camp, Plummer said he saw objects at a distance
which he felt sure were Indians. Realizing that the next thing for him
to do was to try to save his life, he cut the harness from one of his
horses, mounted and dashed away toward Adobe Walls.
The news he brought caused much excitement, as these were the first
men that had been killed since the building of Adobe Walls. When
Plummer reached the Walls there were only a few men there, but he
managed to get two buffalo-hunters to go back with him to bury the
dead. A party of fifteen surveyors, employed by the State of Texas,
and in charge of a man named Maddox, had just arrived in that section.
I am told that this was the first surveying ever done in the
Panhandle, and that the Maddox survey still holds good. The surveyors'
camp was on Johns' Creek. Plummer had halted there on his way to Adobe
Walls, to warn the men against the Indians. When Plummer returned, the
members of the surveying party joined him to help bury the dead. No
further indignities had been offered the bodies, which were buried on
the spot. The horses, still in their harness were found grazing in the
valley. Plummer gathered up the outfit and went to Adobe Walls--the
surveyors kept going straight south, fully satisfied that soldiers,
not surveyors, were what the country most needed.
Hearing all this, I was impatient to return to my own camp as quickly
as possible, but was detained by the necessity of buying a mate for my
mule, which was beset with difficulties. Finally, I managed to buy a
horse. My next obstacle to overcome was to replace the gun I had lost
in the Canadian. The best I was able to do was to buy what was called
a round-barrel Sharp's. I had left camp in such a hurry that I failed
to take my six-shooter, an oversight of which I was rarely guilty in
those days. I had been absent three days when I got back to my camp.
The evening before I left Adobe Walls, another hunter came in with
Indian news. His name was Moore. He said that two days previously two
men had been killed by Indians in his camp on a tributary of Salt Fork
of Red River, north of where Clarendon, Texas, is now situated. The
names of the dead men were John Jones, nicknamed "Cheyenne Jack," a
young Englishman, and "Blue Billy," a German. The camp was destroyed
and all the stock run off.
"Cheyenne Jack" belonged to an influential family in England. His
relatives, several years later, made inquiry through the British
diplomatic service, in communication to the commanding officer at Fort
Elliott, Texas, as to the whereabouts of the unfortunate man's
remains. I was directed to find where the body had been buried. It was
a week after Moore reported these murders before a party went from
Adobe Walls to bury the dead men. Jones and his companion had fallen
in the bed of a creek in a grove of timber, right in camp. While Moore
was absent, a flood came down the creek and carried the bodies and the
whole camp away. The bodies could not be found.
Before leaving the Walls to go to my camp, I got "Brick" Bond, now
living at Dodge City, Kansas, to accompany me. I was fearful that the
Indians had attacked my camp and possibly killed Albright and
"Frenchy." Happily, I found them alive and ignorant of what had been
going on in the country south of the Walls.
All of us agreed that a blind man could see that it was entirely too
risky to stay in camp with Indians all around us, so we lost no time
in loading our outfit and pulling into Adobe Walls, arriving there by
noon the next day. The story of the Indian depredations had spread to
all the hunting camps, and by the time we reached the Walls a large
crowd had gathered in from the surrounding country. We remained here
for about a week.
An odd thing about this Indian excitement was that none of the hunters
had seen an Indian nor a sign of one. The Indians evidently had
carefully picked their time, watching closely and waiting until only
two or three men were in camp, whereupon they attacked and then
slipped stealthily away. All of us felt that these murders had been
perpetrated as a warning to the buffalo-hunters to leave the
country--to go north of the "dead line."
Every man of us was dead set against abandoning the buffalo range. The
herds were now at hand, and we were in a fair way to make a pile of
money. Furthermore, the buffaloes were becoming scarcer and scarcer
each year, and it was expedient that we make hay while the sun shone,
for soon the sun would be no longer shining in the buffalo business.
Its night was close at hand. We decided that the best and safest plan
would be for three or four outfits to throw in together and all occupy
the same camp. After all, it was not unusual to hear of two or three
buffalo-hunters being killed and scalped every year, and perhaps there
would be no further outbreaks by the Indians. It was agreed, however,
that everybody should be very careful and take every precaution
against surprise and attack.
When we started back to the range, most of us went west and north of
the Walls, as the Indians were supposed to be camped on the headwaters
of the Washita and the Sweetwater, south of us, their main summer camp
grounds. But I was so in love with my location on Dixon Creek,
southwest of the Walls, that I resolved to take the risk and establish
myself at that point, and went there with three skinners I had hired.
We had left a lot of hides at this camp, and began hauling them to
Adobe Walls, which took several days. I felt uneasy all the time.
Something seemed to be wrong. There was Indian in the air, and I could
not shake myself loose from thinking about the possible danger, so I
told my men that it might be well for us to get over on the north side
of the Canadian. We broke camp and went to Adobe Walls, to increase
our stock of supplies for a stay near the head of Moore's Creek.
We were buying supplies to last us two months, and were ready to start
next day. Late in the evening James Hanrahan came to me and said:
"Billy, where are you going?"
"Northwest," I answered.
Hanrahan then asked me how it would suit me for the two of us to throw
in together. He said he had been having trouble in getting a man who
could hunt fast enough to keep his skinners busy. Hanrahan owned a big
outfit, and usually had seven skinners. I told him that nothing would
please me more than to go into partnership with him, and that I could
easily kill enough buffaloes to keep twenty skinners hard at work
every day. Hanrahan offered to give me half of all the profits, which
was as liberal as any man could wish for.
Our wagons were all assembled and loaded, in readiness for us to pull
out next morning, June 27, 1874.
It might be well to describe the exact location of the buildings and
the nature of their surroundings. All the buildings at Adobe Walls
faced to the east, the main ones standing in a row. On the south was
the store of Rath & Wright, with a great pile of buffalo hides at the
rear. Then came Hanrahan's saloon, and fifty yards or so north of the
latter was the store of Leonard & Myers, the building forming the
northeast corner of the big picket stockade. In the southwest corner
of the stockade was a mess house, and between the mess house and the
store was a well. The blacksmith's shop was located just north of
Hanrahan's saloon.
The adobe walls of the main buildings were about two feet thick. The
door of Rath & Wright's store opened to the west, while that of
Leonard & Myers looked to the east.
Bent's Creek, west of the Walls, flowed from the northwest in a
southeasterly direction to the Canadian, passing close to the ruins of
old Adobe Walls, about a mile and a quarter south of the new Adobe
Walls. On the north side of Bent's Creek, southwest of the buildings,
was a hill, north of which the land was smoother and afterwards a part
of the Turkey Track Ranch pasture.
East of Adobe Walls lay the open valley of Adobe Walls Creek,
terminating in a growth of willows, cottonwoods, hackberry,
chinaberry, and stunted elms that fringed this stream, on the other
side of which, at a distance of about twelve hundred yards from
Leonard & Myer's store stood a butte-like hill of considerable height,
with a more or less level bench near the summit, caused by the sliding
and falling of debris from the crest. Several hundred yards southeast
were the low sandhills of the Canadian, whose wide expanse of level
sand was more than a mile away.
The season had advanced so slowly, and the buffaloes had been so long
coming north, that we had done comparatively little hunting, and all
of us were impatient to be up and gone. O'Keefe was doing a big
business at his blacksmith's shop, pounding away hour after hour,
repairing the wagons on which the buffalo hides were to be hauled from
the hunting grounds to the traders at Adobe Walls. My wagon was in
front of the shop, O'Keefe having finished repairing it.
I had been unable to replace my big "50," lost in the Canadian, with a
gun that suited me in every way, but it was highly important that I
should be well-armed if I expected to fulfill my promises to Hanrahan.
The only gun at the Walls that was not in use was a new "44" Sharp's,
which was next best to a "50." This gun had been spoken for by a
hunter who was still out in camp; he was to pay $80 for it, buying it
from Langton who was in charge of Rath & Wright's store. Langton told
me that if necessary he would let me have the gun, as he had ordered a
case of guns and was expecting them to arrive any day on the freight
train from Dodge City, and he probably would have them in stock before
the owner of the gun came in from the buffalo range. News came in that
night, the evening of June 26, 1874, that the freight wagons were
camped on the flats north of the Walls and, of course, would show up
in a day or two. Langton also heard that the man to whom he had
promised the gun was not coming for several days, so he hunted me up
and told me I might have the gun.
I went right over to his store and got the "44," together with a full
case of ammunition. I was so tickled over my good luck, that I took
the gun over to Hanrahan's saloon, to show it to him. After we had
looked the gun over, I set it down in the corner for the night,
intending to get it when we said good bye to the Walls next morning,
headed for our camp on the buffalo range. For some reason which I can
not explain, even to myself, I left the case of ammunition with
Langton, little dreaming how greatly I would regret my carelessness.
By this time the excitement and talk about the fate of the four men
who had been killed by Indians had subsided, and we paid no further
attention to the matter, so busily were we engaged in our preparations
for departure. Several hunters had come in that day, and we planned to
stay up late that night, celebrating our return to the range, telling
stories of past experiences and joking about how much money we would
have when the hunt was over.
The night was sultry and we sat with open doors. In all that vast
wilderness, ours were the only lights save the stars that glittered
above us. There was just a handful of us out there on the Plains, each
bound to the other by the common tie of standing together in the face
of any danger that threatened us. It was a simple code, but about the
best I know of. Outside could be heard at intervals the muffled sounds
of the stock moving and stumbling around, or a picketed horse shaking
himself as he paused in his hunt for the young grass. In the timber
along Adobe Walls Creek to the east owls were hooting. We paid no
attention to these things, however, and in our fancied security
against all foes frolicked and had a general good time. Hanrahan did a
thriving trade.