Produced by Julia Miller, Julia Neufeld and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
[=e] refers to the "long e" sound (example: K[=i]-o-te).
[Illustration:
_BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION BUFFALO NY_]
BUFFALO LAND:
AN
AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT
OF THE
_Discoveries, Adventures, and Mishaps of a Scientific
and Sporting Party_
IN THE WILD WEST;
WITH
GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF THE COUNTRY; THE RED MAN, SAVAGE
AND CIVILIZED; HUNTING THE BUFFALO, ANTELOPE,
ELK, AND WILD TURKEY; ETC., ETC.
REPLETE WITH INFORMATION, WIT, AND HUMOR.
The Appendix Comprising a Complete Guide for Sportsmen and Emigrants.
BY
W. E. WEBB,
OF TOPEKA, KANSAS.
Profusely Illustrated
FROM ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPHS, AND ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY HENRY WORRALL.
CINCINNATI AND CHICAGO:
E HANNAFORD & COMPANY.
SAN FRANCISCO: F. DEWING & CO.
1872.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
E. HANNAFORD & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
STEREOTYPED AT THE FRANKLIN TYPE FOUNDRY, CINCINNATI.
TO
The Primeval Man,
_The Original Westerner, and First Buffalo Hunter,_
This Work is Dedicated,
WITH PROFOUND REGARD,
_BY THE AUTHOR._
BUFFALO LAND.
BY OUR TAMMANY SACHEM.
There's a wonderful land far out in the West,
Well worthy a visit, my friend;
There, Puritans thought, as the sun went to rest,
Creation itself had an end.
'T is a wild, weird spot on the continent's face,
A wound which is ghastly and red,
Where the savages write the deeds of their race
In blood that they constantly shed.
The graves of the dead the fair prairies deface,
And stamp it the kingdom of dread.
The emigrant trail is a skeleton path;
You measure its miles by the bones;
There savages struck, in their merciless wrath,
And now, after sunset, the moans,
When tempests are out, fill the shuddering air,
And ghosts flit the wagons beside,
And point to the skulls lying grinning and bare
And beg of the teamsters a ride;
Sometimes 't is a father with snow on his hair,
Again, 't is a youth and his bride.
What visions of horror each valley could tell,
If Providence gave it a tongue!
How often its Eden was changed to a hell,
In which a whole train had been flung;
How death cry and battle-shout frightened the birds,
And prayers were as thick as the leaves,
And no one to catch the poor dying one's words
But Death, as he gathered his sheaves:
You see the bones bleaching among the wild herds,
In shrouds that the field spider weaves.
That era is passing--another one comes,
The era of steam and the plow,
With clangor of commerce and factory hums,
Where only the wigwam is now.
Like mist of the morning before the bright sun,
The cloud from the land disappears;
The Spirit of Murder his circle has run
And fled from the march of the years;
The click of machine drowns the click of the gun,
And day hides the night time of tears.
PREFACE.
The purpose of this work is to make the reader better acquainted with
that wild land which he has known from childhood, as the home of the
Indian and the buffalo. The Rocky Mountain chain, distorted and rugged,
has been aptly called the colossal vertebrae of our continent's broad
back, and from thence, as a line, the plains, weird and wonderful,
stretch eastward through Colorado, and embrace the entire western half
of Kansas.
Fortune, not long since, threw in my way an invitation, which I gladly
accepted, to join a semi-scientific party, since somewhat known to fame
through various articles in the newspaper press, in a sojourn of several
months on the great plains. At a meeting held with due solemnity on the
eve of starting, the Professor (to whom the reader will be introduced in
the proper connection) was chosen leader of the expedition, while to my
lot fell the office of editor of the future record, or rather Grand
Scribe of what we were pleased to call our "Log Book." The latter now
lies before me, in all its glory of shabby covers and dirty pages. Its
soiled face is as honorable as that of the laborer who comes from his
task in a well harvested field. Out of the sheaves gathered during our
journey, I shall try and take such portions as may best supply the
mental cravings of the countless thousands who hunger for the life and
the lore of the far West.
I have given the mistakes as well as triumphs of our expedition, and the
members of the party will readily recognize their familiar camp names.
The disguise will probably be pleasant, as few like to see their
failures on public parade, preferring rather to leave these in barracks,
and let their successes only appear at review.
The plains have a face, a people, and a brute creation, peculiarly their
own, and to these our party devoted earnest study. The expedition
presented a rare opportunity of becoming acquainted with the game of the
country; and, in writing the present volume, my aim has been to make it
so far a text-book for amateur hunters that they may become at once
conversant with the habits of the game, and the best manner of killing
it. The time is not far distant, when the plains and the Rocky
Mountains will be sought by thousands annually, as a favorite field for
sport and recreation.
Another and still larger class, it is hoped, will find much of interest
and value in the following pages. From every state in the Union, people
are constantly passing westward. We found emigrant wagons on spots from
which the Indians had just removed their wigwams. Multitudes more are
now on the way, with the earnest purpose of founding homes and, if
possible, of finding fortunes. In order to aid this class, as well as
the sportsman, I have gathered in an appendix such additional
information as may be useful to both.
The scientific details of our trip will probably be published in proper
form and time, by the savans interested. In regard to these, my object
has been simply to chronicle such matters as made an impression upon my
own mind, being content with what cream might be gathered by an
amateur's skimming, while the more bulky milk should be saved in
capacious scientific buckets.
Professor Cope, the well known naturalist, of the Academy of Sciences,
Philadelphia, received for examination and classification the most
valuable fossils we obtained, and to him I am indebted for a large
amount of most interesting and valuable scientific matter, which will
be found embodied in chapters twenty-third and twenty-fourth.
The illustrations of men and brutes in this work are studies from life.
Whenever it was possible, we had photographs taken.
The plains, it must be said, are a tract with which Romance has had much
more to do than History. Red men, brave and chivalrous, and unnatural
buffalo, with the habits of lions, exist only in imagination. In these
pages, my earnest endeavor, when dealing with actualities, has been to
"hold the mirror up to Nature," and to describe men, manners, and things
as they are in real life upon the frontiers, and beyond, to-day.
W. E. W.
TOPEKA, KANSAS, _May_, 1872.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGES.
THE OBJECT OF OUR EXPEDITION--A GLIMPSE OF ALASKA THROUGH CAPTAIN
WALRUS' GLASS--WE ARE TEMPTED BY OUR RECENT PURCHASE--ALASKAN
GAME OF "OLD SLEDGE"--THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF KANSAS--THE
SMOKY HILL TRAIL--INDIAN HIGH ART--THE "BORDER-RUFFIAN,"
PAST AND PRESENT--TOPEKA--HOW IT RECEIVED ITS
NAME--WAUKARUSA AND ITS LEGEND, 25-35