We waited until broad daylight, but no further disturbance occurred, and

what was strangest of all, the valley both above and below us seemed

entirely destitute of either Pawnee or Cheyenne. A reconnoissance, which

was made by the Professor, Mr. Colon, and our guide, developed the fact

that not being able to steal any thing else, the savages had executed

the difficult military maneuver of stealing away. Just before daybreak,

the Pawnees had gone due north, and the Cheyennes, about the same time,

due south. As White Wolf had expressed a cold-blooded intention of

exterminating the remnant of his foes in the morning, the pitying stars

may have taken the matter in hand and misled him; and if so, how

disappointed that blood-thirsty band must have been when their path

brought them into their own village, instead of the Pawnee camp! In

confirmation of this astrological suggestion, I may say that while in

Topeka I saw "stars," on several occasions, leading Indians in the

opposite direction from that in which they wished to go.

In due time our party sat down to another plentiful breakfast, which was

eaten with all the more relish because we had all that little world to

ourselves again. Discussing Dobeen's apparition, we finally came to the

unanimous conclusion that it was some Indian who, while his brothers

stole away, had straggled behind, to pick up a keepsake. I think that

hideous face among the trees never entirely ceased to haunt the chamber

of Dobeen's memory. He shied as badly as did Muggs' mule, when in

strange timber, and was ever afterward a warm advocate for pitching camp

on the open prairie.

In justice to White Wolf, it should be stated that we afterward learned

that while charging in such a mistaken direction after Pawnees that

morning, he met two men from Hays City, out after buffalo meat. Finding

that they were from the village which had been kind to him, he loaded

their wagons with fat quarters, instead of filling their bodies with

arrows, as they had first expected, and sent them home rejoicing.

CHAPTER XIX.

STALKING THE BISON--BUFFALO AS OXEN--EXPENSIVE POWER--A BUFFALO AT

A LUNATIC ASYLUM--THE GATEWAY TO THE HERDS--INFERNAL

GRAPE-SHOT--NATURE'S BOMB-SHELLS--CRAWLING BEDOUINS--"THAR THEY

HUMP"--THE SLAUGHTER BEGUN--AN INEFFECTUAL CHARGE--"KETCHING THE

CRITTER"--RETURN TO CAMP--CALVES' HEAD ON THE STOMACH--AN

UNPLEASANT EPISODE--WOLF BAITING, AND HOW IT IS DONE.

Breakfast over, the day's work was planned out. We were desirous of

loading one of our wagons with game, and sending it back to Hays, from

whence the meat could be forwarded by express to distant friends, and

serve as tidings from camp, of "all's well." The other wagon we decided

to keep with us. Horseback hunting, although fine sport, evidently would

not, in our hands, prove sufficiently expeditious in procuring meat. Our

guide adduced another argument as follows: "Yer see, gents, if yer want

ter ship meat by rail, it won't do ter run it eight or ten miles, like a

fox, and git it all heated up. Ther jints must be cool, or they'll

spile." Stalking the bison was to be our day's sport, therefore, and we

were speedily off, taking only the two wagons, the riding animals being

all left in camp. Shamus prepared a lunch for us, as we did not expect

to return for dinner before dusk.

Following the same route as the day before, we soon ascended the Saline

"breaks," and emerged on the plains above. Looking to us as if they had

not changed position for twenty-four hours, the buffalo herds still

covered the face of the country, busy as ever in their constant

occupation of feeding. For animals which perform no labor, they have an

egregious appetite, eating as if they were Nature's lawn-gardeners, and

were under contract with her to keep the grass shaved.

What an immense aggregate of animal power was running to waste before

us. Those huge shoulders, to which the whole body seemed simply a base,

were just the things for neck-yokes. Others, indeed, had thought the

same before us, and tried to utilize these wild oxen. A gentleman at

Salina, Kansas, obtained two buffalo calves, and trained them carefully

to the yoke. They pulled admirably, but their very strength proved a

temptation to them. A pasture-fence was no obstacle in the way of their

sweet will. Not that they went over it, but they simply walked through

it, boards being crushed as readily as a willow thicket. In summer they

took the shortest road to water, regardless of intervening obstructions,

and they thought nothing of flinging themselves over a perpendicular

bank, wagon and all. After carefully calculating the result of his

experiment at the end of the first year, the owner decided that,

although he undoubtedly had a large amount of power on hand, he could

obtain a similar quantity, at less expense, by buying a couple of

steam-engines.

A few months previous to our trip, a contractor on the Kansas Pacific

Railroad determined to domesticate a young bison bull, and accordingly

took it to his home at Cincinnati. Proving a cross customer, he

presented it to the Longview Lunatic Asylum, near that city, but there

was no inmate insane enough to occupy the yard simultaneously with

Taurus for any length of time. The first day he charged among the

lunatics in a reckless manner, eliciting surprising activity of crazy

legs. If exercise for their minds was what the poor creatures needed,

they certainly obtained it, by calculating when and where to dodge.

Without loss of time, we set about finding a gateway into the herds.

Looking at the surface before us, it appeared a level, unbroken plain,

quite to the verge where it rolled up against the distant horizon. One

would have maintained that even a ditch, if there, might be traced in

its meanderings across the smooth brown floor. Yet deep ravines, miles

in length, wound in and out among the herds, though to us entirely

invisible. A short search discovered one of these, which promised to

answer our purpose, and to lead to a spot where a large number of cows

and calves were feeding. Fortunately the wind was north, so that we

could creep into its teeth without sending to the timid mothers any

tell-tale taint.

The wagons were stopped, and we got out, and descending into the hollow,

moved forward. The walls on either side seemed disagreeably close. All

around us was animal life, a small portion of which would have been

sufficient, if so disposed, to make the concealed path which we were

traversing a veritable "last ditch" to us. As we entered the ravine,

some cayotes slunk out of it ahead of us, and one large gray wolf, with

long gallop, disappeared over the banks. The temptation to fire at them

was very strong, but prudence and the guide forbade.

We picked up some very fine specimens of "infernal grape," in the form

of nearly round balls of iron pyrites. They lay upon the surface like

canister-shot upon a battle-field. It seemed as if during the early

period, when Mother Earth began to cool off a little, her fiery heart

still palpitated so violently under her thin bodice, that beads of the

molten life within, like drops of perspiration, had forced their way

through, and, in cooling, had retained their bubble-like form. We could

have picked up a half-bushel of them which would have made very fair

aliment for cannon. The dogs of war could have spit them out as

spitefully and fatally against human hearts as if the morsels had been

prepared by human hands. From such well-molded shot, of no mortal make,

Milton might have obtained his charges for those first cannon which the

traitor-angel invented and employed against the embattled hosts of

heaven. Shamus, when he afterward became acquainted with the specimens,

called them "a rattlin' shower of witches' pebbles."

We also passed large surfaces of white rock, which were sprinkled all

over with dark, hollow balls, of a vitrified substance. Most of them

were imbedded midway in the rock, leaving a hemisphere exposed which, in

color and form, was an exact counterpart of a large bomb. If the reader

has ever seen a shell partly imbedded in the substance against which it

was fired, this description will be perfectly plain. There were

indications that a volcano had once existed in this vicinity, and it

seemed highly probable that the red-hot balls which it projected into

air had fallen and cooled in the soft formation adjacent, still

retaining their original shape.

We should have lingered longer over these geological curiosities, had

not the premonitory symptoms of a scientific lecture from the Professor

alarmed our guide into the remonstrance, "You're burnin' daylight,

gents!" and thus warned, we pushed forward.

A few hundred yards further brought us to the spot for commencing active

operations. Dropping upon hands and knees, we began crawling along the

side of the ravine in a line, pushing our guns before us. We knew that

the buffalo must be very close, for we could hear the measured cropping

of their teeth upon the grass. They seemed to be feeding toward us, as

we slowly drew up to the level. I found myself trembling all over, so

nervous that the cracking of a weed under our guns sounded to me as loud

as a pistol-shot.

I looked around, and the stories which I had read in my youth of

adventures in oriental lands rose fresh to my memory. I almost imagined

our party a dozen wild Bedouins, creeping from ambush to fire upon a

caravan, the first note of alarm to which would be a storm of musketry.

Unshaven faces, soiled clothes, and rough hair, assisted us to the

personation, and if aught else was needed to carry out the fancy, it

soon came in a low "Hist!" from the guide, as he pointed to the level

above us. Following the direction of his finger, we saw some hairy

lumps, about the size of muffs, not fifty yards in front of us, bobbing

up and down just above the line which defined the prairie's edge against

the sky. For an instant, we supposed them to be small animals of some

sort, playing on the slope, but the low voice of the guide said, "Thar

they hump, gents!" and we caught the word at once, just as the whaler

does the welcome cry of "There she blows," from the look-out aloft. What

we saw, of course, were the humps of buffaloes moving slowly forward as

they fed. At a word from our guide, we halted for last preparations.

"Fire at the nearest cows, gents," he said, "and if you get one down,

and keep hid, you'll have lots of shots at the bulls gatherin' round."

Muggs was continually getting his gun crosswise, so that should it go

off ahead of time, as usual, it would shoot somebody on the left, and

kick some one on the right. Just ahead of us, a prairie dog sat on his

castle wall, and barked constantly. But, fortunately, neither his

signals nor our grumbled remonstrances to the Briton seemed to attract

the attention of the herd in the least degree.

A few more feet of cautious crawling, and several buffaloes stood

revealed, a cow and calf among the number. The mother espied us, and

lifting her uncouth head, with its crooked, homely horns, regarded us

for an instant with a quiet sort of feminine curiosity, and then went to

feeding again. She probably considered us a parcel of sneaking wolves,

and being conscious of having hosts of protectors near her, was not at

all frightened. Almost simultaneously, the guns of the whole party were

at shoulder, and just as the cow lifted her head again, to watch the

movement, we fired. The fate of that bison was as effectually sealed as

that of the condemned army horse which was first used to tell Paris and

the world the terrors of the mitrailleuse. The poor creature gave a

quick whirl to the right, made two convulsive jumps, and then stood

still. She dropped her nose, a gush of blood following fast; her whole

frame shuddered, as the air from the lungs tried to force its way

through the clotted tide, and then she fell dead, almost crushing the

calf also. The smell of the blood seemed to excite the bulls more than

the report of the guns, which had only startled them for an instant.

Some stood stupidly snuffing about the prostrate victim, while others,

straightening out their tails, marched uneasily around.

Lying on the ground, and our heads only visible, we kept up a constant

firing. It was almost impossible not to hit some of the old bulls. The

veterans were wounded rapidly, and in all portions of their bodies. One

old fellow, who had been standing with his rear to us, suddenly took it

into his head to run for dear life, and away he went accordingly, with

his hams looking very much like the end of a huge pepper-box. Two or

three others soon began to show signs of grogginess, being drunk with

the blood which was collecting internally from their many wounds.

One bulky and distressed specimen suddenly caught a glimpse of the

Professor's hat. Forthwith the tail was straightened and raised stiffly

into the air, the head was lowered, and down he came upon us at full

charge. Such a proceeding, a few days before, would simply have resolved

itself into a question whether he could catch us or not. Now, however,

we stood our ground, or rather we lay upon it very firmly, while enough

of us took careful aim to batter his bones fast and sorely. Before

taking twenty steps, he was limping from a shattered foreleg, and in a

moment more came to a sullen halt, and shook his old head in impotent

rage. His eyes were fixed fiercely upon ours; he evidently desired

nothing in the world so much as to get forward for a closer

acquaintance, but his broken bones forbade. We fired rapidly, and fairly

loaded his body with lead before he allowed death to trip him from his

feet. He never took his eyes from off us, until the body rolled over,

and I thanked our breech-loaders which had prevented the poor beast from

having a fair chance.

Three buffalo were down, as the result of our first "stalk." The herd

had fled, but the calf we had first seen remained standing stupidly by

his dead mother. "Let's ketch the critter," said our guide, and to catch

him we accordingly prepared. The first movement was to surround him,

which done, we began closing in upon him. He was hardly larger than a

good-sized goat, and we feared might succeed in dodging us, but as the

circle narrowed, our hopes of securing a live specimen increased.

Suddenly, the little fellow seemed aware of his danger, and, whirling

about, with head down, made a dart for the open space between Sachem and

the guide. As they closed to prevent his escape, our fat friend went

down with a butt in the stomach, which, although far from pleasant, was

nevertheless the occasion of sufficient delay on the part of the calf to

enable the guide and Semi-Colon to lay firm hold upon him. It was

wonderful what a warlike little fellow he proved, butting undauntedly at

our legs, and uttering, as he did so, a hissing noise. "But me no

butts," exclaimed the Professor, with a facetiousness which from him was

almost as amusing to the rest of us as the pugnacity of the calf, as he

sprang aside to avoid a blow on the knee, and suddenly recognized Duty's

call in another direction. It was not long, however, before the little

animal was securely bound, and laid in one of the wagons, which by this

time had come up.

The work of skinning and cutting up our game now began, the robe of the

cow proving finer than that from either of the others. Our men told us

that from one position old hunters sometimes shoot down a dozen buffalo

before the herd takes flight. Success is much more probable if the first

victim is a female.

Other herds invited our attention, and by three o'clock in the afternoon

we had twenty quarters secured, and were returning to camp. Only the

first three robes had been taken off, the skin being left on the rest of

the meat, the better to preserve it from soiling.

Such hunting fatigues one, and we were glad enough to see the smoke of

our fire rising from the valley, and to anticipate the dinner which we

felt was waiting for us. The plains tired us, and so did conversation,

and all instinctively felt that any attempt at a joke, in our hungry,

worn out condition, would have caused an all but fiendish state of

feeling. Momus himself could not have made that party smile. Most of us

had taken part in cutting up the carcasses, and as we now rode home,

sitting on the skin-covered quarters, we looked like a party of butchers

returning from the slaughter-pens.

As we drew close to camp, how goodly a sight did Shamus seem, in his

white apron, bidding us "Hurry to yer dinner!" while backing up his

invitation were the brown turkeys, the stews and roasts, the white bread

and yellow butter, and a clean table-cloth. On the spot, we could have

pardoned Shamus all his notions of witchcraft, and I think that Sachem's

charity just then would even have covered our cook's late weakness in

the line of "spooning." The Professor's science, Colon's philanthropy,

Sachem's wealth of worldly wisdom, and Muggs' British self-complacency,

all combined, offered no such consolation, in this hour of sober

realities, as the simple Irishman, with his basting-spoon.

Water from the brook and towels from the chest soon removed blood and

dust, and dinner followed. Shamus had many a mark scored against Sachem

for attacks on himself and his ancestry, and ventured during dinner to

rub out one, by asking Tammany, in a very respectful manner, and as if

it was a matter of our _cuisine_, whether calves' heads agreed with his

stomach.

What would have been called in Washington, "an unpleasant episode," was

discovered by Muggs in the center of a biscuit. Taking a hearty British

bite from it, various hairy lines followed the morsel into his mouth,

and caught among his teeth. Examination revealed one of Mr. Colon's

choicest spiders, which by some means had effected his escape and

crawled into the dough. It was hard to tell which was most incensed, the

Briton or the entomologist. Sachem remarked that the specimen was much

kneaded, and added it to our bill of fare as "game, breaded."

As night approached, our Mexicans prepared for wolf-baiting. During the

day they had shot two or three old bulls, which wandered within half a

mile of camp, and now the swarthy fellows intended to turn an honest

penny. For these purposes professional hunters, and occasionally

teamsters on the plains, provide themselves with bottles of strychnine,

and a quantity of this was accordingly produced. We went with the men to

see the operation, as it clearly came within the province of our

studies. With their knives the Mexicans cut from the carcass lumps of

flesh about the size of one's fist, into which gashes were made, doses

of strychnine inserted, and the flesh then pressed together again. The

balls, thus charged, were scattered close around the carcass, and a few

laid upon it. Cuts were also made, and the poison introduced in various

parts of the hams. As many as fifty doses were thus prepared, and we

then returned to camp.

No cayote serenade occurred that night, the musicians evidently being

busy drawing sweetness from the cords of the slain. A solemn hush lay

over the land, for the bisons are a quiet race, and, except in novels,

never take to roaring any more than they do to ten-mile charges.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CAYOTES' STRYCHNINE FEAST--CAPTURING A TIMBER WOLF--A FEW CORDS

OF VICTIMS--WHAT THE LAW CONSIDERS "INDIAN TAN"--"FINISHING" THE

NEW YORK MARKET--A NEW YORK FARMER'S OPINION OF OUR GRAY

WOLF--WESTWARD AGAIN--EPISODES IN OUR JOURNEY--THE WILD HUNTRESS OF

THE PLAINS--WAS OUR GUIDE A MURDERER?--THE READER JOINS US IN A

BUFFALO CHASE--THE DYING AGONIES.

The next day's life began, as did the previous one, before sunrise, and

while breakfast was cooking, we followed the Mexicans down to examine

their baits. The ground around the carcasses was flecked with forms

which, in the early light, looked like sleeping sheep. A half-dozen or

more wolves, which were still feeding, scampered away at our approach.

From the number of animals lying around, we at first supposed most of

them simply gorged, but the rapid, satisfied jabbering of the Mexicans

quickly convinced us that the strychnine had been doing its work more

effectually than we had given it credit for. Twenty-three dead wolves

were found, and the even two dozen was made up by a large specimen of

the gray variety--or timber-wolf, as it is called in contradistinction

from the cayote--who was exceedingly sick, and went rolling about in

vain efforts to get out of the way.

Before proceeding to skin the dead wolves, the Mexicans captured this

old fellow and haltered him, by carbine straps, to the horns of one of

the buffalo carcasses, near which he sat on his haunches, with eyes

yellow from rage and fright. Just to stir him up, we tossed him a piece

of bone; he caught it between his long fangs with a click that made our

nerves twitch. Man never appreciates the wonderful command that God gave

him over the other animals until away from his fellows, and surrounded

by the wild beasts of the solitudes, in all their native fierceness.

Here were a few mortals of us encompassed by wolves, in sufficient

numbers and power to annihilate our party, and yet one solitary man

walking toward them would have put the whole brute multitude to flight.

Although we wondered, at the time, that so many wolves were gathered

from a single baiting, we soon learned that this success was by no means

unusual. At Grinnel Station, where a corporal's guard was stationed, we

afterward saw over forty dead wolves, and most of them of the gray

variety, stacked up, like cord-wood, as the result of one night's

poisoning by the soldiers.

The remainder of this day was devoted to stalking, and resulted in our

obtaining a sufficiency of robes and meat to justify us in sending the

two Mexican wagons back with them to Hays. Our two captives, the buffalo

calf and wolf, went also. The history of that shipment merits brief

chronicling.

The robes went to St. Louis, to a man who advertised a patent way of

curing such skins, "warranted as good as Indian tan." Some months

afterward they were returned to Topeka, duly finished, and I find in

the official note-book the following entry. "Robes received to-day.

Resolution, by the company, to learn what the law would consider 'Indian

tan,' in a suit for damages." They had been shaved so thin that the

roots of the hair stuck out on the inside, while the patent liquid in

which they had been soaked gave forth an odor which would have been

wonderful for its permanency, if it had not been still more wonderful

for its offensiveness.

Of the meat, a portion went to our friends, and the balance to Fulton

Market, New York. In the first quarter, it carried dyspepsia and

disgust, and was so tough that the recipients, with the utmost effort,

could not find a tender regret for our danger in obtaining it; while our

New York consignee wrote that the first morning's steaks "finished the

market," and very nearly finished his customers. He found it impossible,

even by the Fulton Market method of subtraction, to get three hundred

dollars' worth of express charges out of half that amount of sales, and

suggested a discontinuance of shipments. The buffalo calf died on the

cars, which probably saved somebody's bones from being broken in

celebration of his maturity. The gray wolf got safely to the State of

New York, but escaping soon after, a county hunt became necessary, to

save the sheep from total extinction. One farmer, in his ire, even went

so far as to threaten us with a suit for violating the law, and

importing a pauper and disreputable character into the State.

Our experience may be useful to future hunters, to all of whom we would

say, unless solely to find amusement, never kill old bulls. Cows and

calves are generally juicy and tender, but not so the veterans; they,

after death, butt around among one's digestive organs with a ferocity

which makes the liver ache. Being most easily obtained, bull beef is

generally all that is sent to market, and thus many a patriarchal bison,

dead, accomplishes more in retaliation for his sudden taking-off than

the Fates ever permitted him to do in lusty life.

* * * * *

A few days more were spent in our Silver Creek camp, and we then folded

our tents and took a westward course, with the purpose of examining, not

only the remoter regions of Kansas, but also the Colorado portion of the

plains. The new town of Sheridan, fourteen miles east of the State line,

and nine from Fort Wallace, was our objective point.

"Gentlemen," said the Professor, as we packed and adjusted our things in

the wagons, "we are now to climb for a hundred miles directly up the

roof of the Rocky Mountain water-shed, its long rivers and rich valleys

forming the gutters, or spouts, to carry off the surplus water."

Sachem, who dreaded these lectures almost as much as he did crinoline,

interposed with some of his usual badinage; but among irreverent classes

of Sophomores and Freshmen, the Professor had learnt to answer only such

questions as were relevant, and to pass all others by unheeded. For this

reason such interruptions never broke the thread of his discourse, and

but temporarily checked its unwinding. In a few minutes, however, the

wagons started, and our expedition began crawling up the slope of the

Professor's metaphorical roof, and thereupon our worthy leader's

discourse was brought to a graceful conclusion.

For four days we continued our westward journey, the soft grass carpet

beneath us ever stretching away to the horizon in its tiresome sameness,

its figures of buffalo and antelope, big antlered elk and skulking

wolves woven more beautifully upon its brown ground than in the rug-work

of the looms. How I loved to sit upon such rugs, when a child, and gaze

at the strange figures, as they were lit up by the flashing fire-light!

Memory recalled one very impracticable reindeer, which used to lie just

in front of a maiden aunt's chair, representing a Brussels

manufacturer's idea of the animal. His horns were longer than his head,

body and tail combined, and the spring he was making, when transfixed by

the loom, brought his nose so close to the ground, that my older boyhood

calculated the immense antlers would certainly have tipped him over had

he not been held back by the threads.

But to return to the plains. We examined highlands and lowlands for poor

soil, but found none. What we had once expected to see a bed of sand, if

ever we saw it at all, turned up under the spade a rich dark loam, in

depth and character fully equal to an Illinois prairie. Together with

those other legends, localized drought and grasshoppers, the American

desert, when revealed by the head-light of civilization, had taken to

itself the wings of a myth, and fled away. There was a great sameness in

the climate, as well as the scenery. Day followed day, with its

sunshine and its winds, the latter being decidedly the most disagreeable

feature of the entire trip.

Various episodes marked our journey from Silver Creek to Sheridan. A few

only of the more noteworthy incidents can be transferred to these pages.

They will suffice, however, as specimens of our adventures, and help the

reader, I trust, to a better acquaintance with the free, wild life of

the West.

The second day after leaving Silver Creek, we suddenly encountered

another specialty of the plains, the "Wild Huntress." So often has this

personage and her male counterpart danced, with big letters and a

bowie-knife, across yellow covers, that we met the "original Jacobs" of

the tribe gleefully. She came to us in a cloud of buffalo, with black

eyes glittering like a snake's, and coarse and uncombed hair that

tangled itself in the wind, and streamed and twisted behind her like

writhing vipers. A black riding habit flowed out in the strong breeze,

its train snapping like a loose sail, and a black mustang fled from her

Indian lash--the dark wild horse, a fit carrier for such somber outfit.

She was introduced to us by the bison herd, which came thundering across

our front, with this strange figure pressing its flank and darting

hither and thither from one outskirt of the flying multitude to the

other. The reins lay loose on the neck of her mustang, which entered

into the fierce chase like a bloodhound, doubling and twisting on its

course with an agility that was wonderful.

One hand of the huntress held out a holster revolver, which she fired

occasionally, but with uncertain aim, one of the bullets indeed

whistling our way. The chase constituted the excitement that she sought,

and the pistol was little more than a spur to urge it on.

"That's Ann, poor P--'s wife," said our guide. "Crazy since the Indians

killed her husband. He was a contractor on the railroad; his camp used

to be just above Hays. She lives in the old 'dug-out' on the line yet,

and spends half her time chasing buffalo. She never kills none, but that

isn't what she is after. She wants to be moving, and just as wild as she

can; it sort o' relieves her mind."

The huntress had seen our outfit, and rode toward us. The face was a

very plain one, with a vacant yet anxious expression, and the

tightly-drawn skin seeming scarcely to cover the jaw-bones. She halted

before us, and commenced conversation at once.

"Good day, gentlemen."

"Good day, madam."

"She always tells her story to every body," muttered the guide in a low

voice.

"Have you seen any Cheyennes hereabouts, gentlemen? I sighted a party

this morning, and you ought to have seen them run. Raven Dick, here, put

his best foot foremost, but they shook him out of sight in a ravine.

Haven't any thing better to do, friends, and so I'm riding down some

buffalo."

We could easily understand why superstitious savages should run when a

maniac female of such dismal aspect flitted along their trail.

"Out from Hays, sirs?" she continued, after a pause. "I left there

yesterday. Dick and I camped last night. We must be home when the men

come in from work this eve. Up, Rave!" and she struck the mustang a

cruel blow, from which he jumped with quivering muscles, only to be

violently curbed. For the first time she had just noticed our guide, and

sat for an instant with her wild eyes eating a way to his heart. Then

she turned again to us.

"Sirs, you must aid me. Some say the Cheyennes killed my husband, and

others there be who think Abe there did it. More shame to me who has to

tell it, but the two had a fight about a woman, some months gone. It was

just after pay-day, and husband was drunk; otherwise he'd never have

bothered his head about any girl but the one he married.

"There were blows and black eyes, and being a rough man's quarrel, it

ended with hand-shaking. My man came home, and we sat by the fire that

night, and I took no notice that he'd been wrong, but spoke of our old

home in Ohio, and asked him wouldn't he go back there when the contract

was finished. And he put his hand on mine, and says: 'Sis, if the cuts

and fills on the next mile work to profit, we'll go home.' Just then

there came a hiss from the door at our backs, and husband turned sharp

and quick. There was a knot-hole in the planks, and its round black

mouth, gaping from out in the night at us, had spit the sound into our

ears. Husband he rose and went to the door, and fell back dying, with an

arrow in his breast. Some said it was a Cheyenne, and others said Abe

did it. There were lots of Indian bows in camp, and Cheyennes don't

kill for the love of it, but only to steal. I'm going to ask them, if I

can catch them, did they do it, and if not, I know who did. I've a bow,

Abe, and an arrow too, and I hope his blood isn't on your hands."

"I didn't do it, Ann. I don't shoot no man in the dark," replied our

hostler guide, with a sullen defiance, which among that class stands

equally well for innocence or guilt. We looked at the two, as they sat

for an instant facing each other. The picture was a weird one--a

wildcat, fronting the object of its chase, but undecided whether to

spring or not. We felt that the dark maniac had been hovering around us,

and that this meeting was not altogether accidental. Her disordered

brain was yet undecided in which direction vengeance lay, and, like a

tigress, she was watching and waiting.

Our policy developed, on the instant, into a non-committal and a safe

one. As she wheeled her horse, and left us without a word, we remarked

to our guide that crazy folks were often suspicious of their best

friends.

"That's so," he replied, and rode off to urge on the wagons. We shrank

from the idea of living with a murderer, and acquitted him of the crime

on the spot.

* * * * *

We are moving out over the grand, illimitable plain again. Reader, ride

with us awhile by the side of that big bison bull, which we have just

stirred up from his noonday dream. You see his broad nostrils, reddish

just under the dark skin at the end, and sensitive as the nose of a

pointer. They have caught the air which we tainted, while passing for a

moment across the breeze.

[Illustration: ONE OF OUR SPECIMENS.

_BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION. BUFFALO. N. Y._]

He has seen nothing, and we are still invisible, but he does not stop to

look behind. "Escape for your life!" has been as plainly telegraphed

from nose to brain, as it could be by eyes or mouth. We were so far off

and well hidden then, that those active tell-tales, sound and sight,

could play no part in this alarm. But the sentinel nerves of smell fled

back from their post on the frontier, with the cry of "Man!" and the

beast of the wilderness thinks only of flight. Powerful for defense

against the rest of the animal creation, he is coward on the instant

before its king.

Away he goes, right into the teeth of the wind, which he knows will tell

him of any other foes ahead. Lumber along, old fellow, in your ponderous

gallop,--the reader and I are on your path. Our saddle girths have been

tightly drawn, the holster pistols are nestled snug at hand, in their

cases on either side of the saddle-horn, while across its front lies the

light Henry carbine, with a shoulder-strap attaching it to our person,

should we drop the gun for the pistol. Thus we ride with twenty-four

shots before reloading, at the service of our trigger-finger; the

carbine carries twelve, the pistols each a half-dozen.

How warm we have become. Our hearts are as high up as they can get,

bumping away at the throat-valves, as if they wished to get out and see

what it is that has called their reserves into action.

There is a muskish taint in the air, from the game ahead. Put in your

spurs, comrade; don't spare. Get up beside him quickly as possible. Once

there, the horses will easily stick. A stern chase disheartens the

pursuer, encourages the pursued. Look out for that creek! See how the

buffalo takes its steep bank--a plunge headlong, which sends the dust up

in clouds. Now, as we check and turn into a ford, he is going up the

opposite side.

Another hundred yards, and we are close beside him. The long tongue is

hung out, and his head lies low down, as he plunges steadily forward,

diverging ever so little as we press up opposite his fore-shoulders.

That was a bad shot, my friend, barely missing your horse's head.

Shooting at full gallop is like drawing straight lines while being

shaken.

Some of our bullets are telling; you can hear them crack on his hide.

There is a red spot now, not bigger than the point of one's finger,

opposite a lung, and drops of blood trickle, with the saliva, from his

jaws. Half a score of balls have been pelted into his big body, and he

is bleeding internally. Now the blood comes thicker, and little clots of

it drop down. He slows up--there is danger; look well to your seat!

That was a narrow escape, comrade. The bull suddenly whirled on his

forefeet for a pivot, and your horse's chest, which was brushing his

hind-quarters, grazed the black horns as they dipped for a plunge. The

pony's swerve barely saved you both.

Now he stands sullen, glaring at us. The wounds look like little points

of red paint, put deftly on his shaggy hide. They bleed inwardly, just

crimsoning the brown hair at their mouths. The large eyes roll and swell

with pain and fury. He is measuring our distance.

See him blow the blood from his nostrils. The drops scatter like

red-hot shot around him, seeming to hiss in globules of fury, as they

spatter upon the dry grass. Bladder-like bubbles sputter in ebb and

flow, from the red holes over his lungs. Tiny doors, for death's

messengers to have entered in at.

What a marvel of size and ferocity he looks. Only our horse's legs stand

between us and disembowelment. Down drops the head into battery again,

and his rush would knock us over like nine-pins, did we stay to receive

it. But bison charges are short ones. Our animals spring away, and he

stops. Signs of grogginess are coming on him. How he hates to feel his

knees shake, straightening them out with a jerk, as we thought he was

just going down.

But at last gradually and gracefully he sinks, doubling his legs under

him, and resting on his belly. There is still no flurry, or motion of

any kind denoting pain. Unconquerable to the death, he suddenly falls on

his side, the limbs stiffen, and he is dead.

Twine your hands in the long beard, and in the mane. How he shames the

lion, for whom he could furnish coats half a dozen times over. What

switches of hair those black fetlocks would make. Was there ever another

so big a bison?

Wondering over this, we lie down on the prostrate bulk, and wait for the

wagon.

CHAPTER XXI.

"CREASING" WILD HORSES--MUGGS DISAPPOINTED--A FEAT FOR

FICTION--HORSE AND MONKEY--HOOF WISDOM FOR TURFMEN--PROSPECTIVE

CLIMATIC CHANGES ON THE PLAINS--THE QUESTION OF SPONTANEOUS

GENERATION--WANTON SLAUGHTER OF BUFFALO--AMOUNT OF ROBES AND MEAT

ANNUALLY WASTED--A STRANGE HABIT OF THE BISON--NUMEROUS BILLS--THE

"SNEAK THIEF" OF THE PLAINS.

While we were at breakfast one morning, the guide ran in to say that the

herd of wild horses which we had seen on Silver Creek, were feeding

toward us, a mile away. I left the table to obtain a view of them, and

by Abe's advice carried my rifle, as he suggested that we might "crease"

one of them. This feat consists in hitting the upper edge of the bones

of the neck with a bullet, the blow striking so high up that it will

momentarily paralyze, without fracturing. We had read of it often in

tales of Western daring, where the hero mounted the prostrate steed,

and, upon its return to consciousness, escaped on its back from

numberless difficulties and hosts of Indians.

A short distance out from camp, we turned and saw Muggs following us

with a saddle and bridle on his arm. He had suffered grievous wrong at

the heels of his mule, and was bent on possessing himself of one of our

creased horses. After creeping, with almost infinite caution, within

seventy-five yards, we succeeded in placing our bullets exactly where we

intended, thereby knocking down two victims, who at once became

insensible--and no wonder, for their bones were as effectually fractured

as if they had been struck with a sledge-hammer. Muggs' faith in the

theory of creasing, however, was unbounded. Up he ran and buckled on the

saddle, and got one foot in the stirrup, ready to swing himself into the

seat, when the animal rose.

After waiting about ten minutes, our Briton concluded that a dead horse

was poor riding, and left us with a very emphatic statement that, in his

opinion, capturing a mount with a rifle was "another blarsted Hamerican

lie, you know!"

I afterward conversed with several plainsmen about the merits of

"creasing," and found that their attempts had invariably ended in the

same way as ours had done. The feat may have been possible with

smooth-bore rifles, in the hands of those remarkable hunters of old, who

were able to shoot away the breath of a pigeon, and hit the eye of a

flying hawk; but with breech-loaders I unhesitatingly pronounce creasing

an utter impossibility. The achievement sounds well in theory, but, like

much else of popular Western lore is somewhat impracticable when fairly

tested. I have an idea that the principal market value of "creased"

horses in the future, as in the past, will be derived from furnishing

creatures of romance with fearful rides. For this purpose, a cracked

skeleton would be as apt as a sound one, to carry the rider into many

of the scenes with which these tales are wont to harrow our souls.

While crawling up on the herd, we took its census very carefully. I was

a little surprised to find there were but twenty-five horses, all told.

They were apparently a little larger than the wild ones of Texas, and

had bushy manes and tails, and their step was remarkably firm and

elastic. They were exceedingly timid creatures, raising their heads

constantly, to gaze around. One very interesting circumstance connected

with the herd was that among these wild horses we noticed two strangers;

one, a feeble old buffalo bull, expelled from his tribe, and seeking

their aid against the wolves, and the other, the black pacing stallion.

When we fired, the survivors were off on the instant, and the manner in

which their clean hoofs struck the earth, and spurned it, was truly

worth seeing. No heaves either, it was plain to see, had ever troubled

those full chests. We caught sight of the herd awhile after, on a ridge

four miles away, and they were still running at full speed. These were

the only wild horses we saw on our trip. In fact, but two or three small

droves are believed to exist on the plains, as the great mass of the

shaggy-maned thousands, children of those old Spanish castaways, swarm

nearer the Pacific.

So timid and fleet are these horses that none of them have ever been

captured except during the early spring. They are then poor, and, by

hard spurring, can be ridden down. At other times their bottom, and the

advantage of having no weight to carry, insure their safety. It is

quite probable, however, that a systematic pursuit, of the kind

practiced in Texas, might prove successful at any season of the year.

I gazed at our two victims with less satisfaction than at any thing I

had ever killed. Shooting horses, dear reader, is a good deal like

shooting monkeys. They are both too intimately associated with man to be

made food for his powder. One is a very true and faithful servant, and

the other, if we may believe Mr. Darwin, was once his ancestor.

In examining the two handsome bodies lying there, I noticed one fact to

which I should have liked to draw the attention of the whole learned

fraternity of blacksmiths, who mutilate horses, the world over. The

hoofs were as solid and as sound as ivory, without a crack or wrong

growth of any sort. And why? Turning them up, the secret lay exposed;

for there, filling the cavity within--a sponge of life-giving oil--was

the frog entire, just as Nature made and kept it. Its business was to

feed and moisten the hoof, and this it had done perfectly. No blacksmith

had ever gouged it out with his knife, and robbed it anew at every

shoeing.

It is noticeable that the equine race, in its wild state, has none of

the ills of the species domesticated. The sorrows of horse-flesh are the

fruits of civilization. By the study and imitation of Nature's methods,

we could greatly increase the usefulness of these valuable servants, and

remove temptation from the paths of many men who lead blameless lives,

except in the single matter of horse-trades. It may well be queried,

perhaps, whether even the patient man of Uz, had he been laid up by a

runaway colt instead of boils, could have resisted the temptation to

trade it off upon Bildad the Shuhite, when that individual came to

condole with him.

As we journeyed onward, we found the soil ever the same, in depth and

strength equal to an Illinois prairie. The old cretaceous ocean, and the

great lakes, certainly left it rich in deposits. When its surface shall

have been broken by the plow, and the water-fall absorbed instead of

shed off, the plains will resemble, in appearance and products, any

other prairie country. The amount of moisture annually passing over

them, in storm-clouds that burst further east, is abundantly sufficient

to make the tract very fertile. It is a well established fact in

relation to climatic influences, that moisture attracts moisture; and in

this region the dry ground, with its few shallow streams, has now no

claim upon the summer clouds. The tough buffalo grass has put a lock-jaw

on the plain. It can drink nothing from the floods of the rainy season.

But pry open the hungry mouth with the plowshare, and the earth will

drink greedily. The moisture then absorbed, given up through the agency

of capillary attraction, will draw the showers of summer, as they are

passing over. Already a marked change has taken place over a portion of

the plains, and crops have been grown as far west as Fort Wallace.

The subject of spontaneous generation, I may remark in this connection,

became a very interesting one to our party. Wherever the soil has been

disturbed, wild sun-flowers spring suddenly into existence. The

"grading camps" of the railroads were followed by belts of these

self-asserting annuals. The first garden-patch cultivated at Fort

Wallace had weeds and insects similar to those that infest gardens

elsewhere. In some cases hundreds of miles of barren plain intervened

between the spots where the seeds germinated, and the nearest points

where other plants of the same variety grew. Neither birds or wind could

have carried the seeds in such quantities. Is the theory true that germs

fall down to us from other planets? Or, do not the plains offer a strong

argument on behalf of spontaneous generation?

Another matter on which the plains appealed to us strongly, pertained to

the wanton destruction of its wild cattle. During the year 1871, about

fifty thousand buffalo were killed on the plains of Kansas and Colorado

alone. Of this number, it will be correct to estimate that about

one-third were shot for their robes, as many more for meat, and sixteen

thousand or so for sport. Each buffalo could probably have furnished

five hundred pounds of meat and tallow, the quantity of the latter being

small. When killed for food, only the hind quarters and a small portion

of the loin are saved, in all perhaps two hundred pounds. The hides of

these are sacrificed, the skin being cut with the quarters, and left on

them for their protection. The profits of this great slaughter would,

therefore, be about 16,500 robes and 3,300,000 pounds of meat; the waste

over 33,000 robes, and probably not less than 20,000,000 pounds of

meat. In this computation, the vast herds which range further north are

not included. There, however, the waste is comparatively small, as the

red man is in the habit of saving the greater portion of the flesh and

robes. Of the above twenty million pounds of meat left to rot in the

sun, and taint the air of the plains, the greater proportion would

furnish sweeter and more nourishing food to the poor classes of our

cities than the beef which they are able to obtain.

Let this slaughter continue for ten years, and the bison of the American

continent will become extinct. The number of valuable robes and pounds

of meat which would thus be lost to us and posterity, will run too far

into the millions to be easily calculated. All over the plains, lying in

disgusting masses of putrefaction along valley and hill, are strewn

immense carcasses of wantonly slain buffalo. They line the Kansas

Pacific Railroad for two hundred miles.

Following ordinary sporting parties for an hour after they have

commenced smiting the borders of a herd, stop by a few of the monsters

that they leave behind, in pools of blood, upon the grass; draw your

hunting-knife across the fat hind-quarters, and see how the cuts reveal

depths of sweet, nourishing meat, sufficient to supply two hundred

starving wretches with an abundant dinner; then if your humanity does

not tempt to a shot at the worse than pot-hunters in front, God's

bounties have indeed been thrown away upon you.

By law, as stringent in its provisions as possible, no man should be

suffered to pull trigger on a buffalo, unless he will make practical use

of the robe and the meat. What would be thought of a hunter, in any of

the Western States, who shot quails and chickens and left them where

they fell? Every citizen, whether sportsman or not, would join in outcry

against him. Another matter which the law should regulate relates to the

protection of the buffalo cows until after the season when they have

brought forth their young. The calf will thrive, though weaned by

necessity at a very early age, and the season for shooting cows,

although short, would be amply long enough to comport with the chances

of future increase.

Probably the most cruel of all bison-shooting pastime, is that of firing

from the cars. During certain periods in the spring and fall, when the

large herds are crossing the Kansas Pacific Railroad, the trains run for

a hundred miles or more among countless thousands of the shaggy monarchs

of the plains. The bison has a strange and entirely unaccountable

instinct or habit which leads it to attempt crossing in front of any

moving object near it. It frequently happened, in the time of the old

stages, that the driver had to rein up his horses until the herd which

he had startled had crossed the road ahead of him. To accomplish this

feat, if the object of their fright was moving rapidly, the animals

would often run for miles.

When the iron-horse comes rushing into their solitudes, and snorting out

his fierce alarms, the herds, though perhaps a mile away from his path,

will lift their heads and gaze intently for a few moments toward the

object thus approaching them with a roar which causes the earth to

tremble, and enveloped in a white cloud that streams further and higher

than the dust of the old stage-coach ever did; and then, having

determined its course, instead of fleeing back to the distant valleys,

away they go, charging across the ridge over which the iron rails lie,

apparently determined to cross in front of the locomotive at all

hazards. The rate per mile of passenger trains is slow upon the plains,

and hence it often happens that the cars and buffalo will be side by

side for a mile or two, the brutes abandoning the effort to cross only

when their foe has merged entirely ahead. During these races the

car-windows are opened, and numerous breech-loaders fling hundreds of

bullets among the densely crowded and flying masses. Many of the poor

animals fall, and more go off to die in the ravines. The train speeds

on, and the scene is repeated every few miles until Buffalo Land is

passed.

Another method of wanton slaughter is the stalking of the herds by men

carrying needle-guns. These throw a ball double the weight of the

ordinary carbine, and the shot is effective at six hundred yards.

Concealed in ravines, the hunter causes terrible havoc with such weapons

before the herd takes flight. We were never guilty of ambushing after

those two days on the Saline, and of those occasions we were heartily

ashamed ever afterward.

[Illustration: _BUREAU OF ILLUSTRATION BUFFALO_

One specialty of the plains that deserves mention, and quite as

remarkable as its brutes and plants, though of rather more modern

origin, is its numerous Bills. Of these, we became acquainted, before

our trip was ended, with the following distinct specimens: Wild Bill,

Buffalo Bill, California Bill, Rattlesnake Bill, and Tiger Bill, the

last named being, as one of our men who had played with him remarked,

the "dangererest on 'em all." We also heard of a Camanche Bill and an

Apache Bill, but these celebrities it was not our fortune to meet.

Five pictures for the consideration of Uncle Samuel, suggestive of a

game law to protect his comb-horns, buttons, tallow, dried beef,

tongues, robes, ivory-black, bone-dust, hair, hides, etc.]

I can not dismiss the peculiar characters of the plains without again

paying tribute to that unapproachable thief, the cayote. Let no party of

travelers leave any thing exposed in camp lighter than an anvil. We

lost, in one night, at the hands--or rather the jaws--of these slinking

sneak-thieves of the plains, a boot, a pair of leather breeches, and a

half-quarter of buffalo calf, besides some smaller articles.

CHAPTER XXII.

A LIVE TOWN AND ITS GRAVE-YARD--HONEST ROMBEAUX IN TROUBLE--JUDGE

LYNCH HOLDS COURT--MARIE AND THE VINE-COVERED COTTAGE--THE TERRIBLE

FLOODS--DEATH IN CAMP AND IN THE DUG-OUT--WAS IT THE WATER WHICH

DID IT?--DISCOVERY OF A HUGE FOSSIL--THE MOSASAURUS OF THE

CRETACEOUS SEA--A GLIMPSE OF THE REPTILIAN AGE--REMINISCENCES OF

ALLIGATOR-SHOOTING--THEY SUGGEST A THEORY.

Our fourth day's travel from Silver Creek brought us to Sheridan, our

secondary base of operations, so to speak, and only fourteen miles east

of the Colorado border. We found the town a very lively one,

notwithstanding that the grave-yard, beautifully located in a commanding

position overlooking the principal street, was patronized to a

remarkable extent. The place had built itself up as simply the temporary

terminus of the Pacific Railroad. Soon after our visit it moved

westward, and at last accounts but one house remained to mark its former

site.

The shades of night had just settled over the town upon the evening of

our arrival, when Abe, our hostler-guide, came running to us with

information that "Honest Rombeaux," another of our hostlers, was being

hung by some of the citizens. The locality which had been selected for

this little diversion was a railroad trestle a short distance below the

town. We were already acquainted with the penchant our Sheridanites had

for hanging people. Thirty or more graves on the neighboring hill had

been pointed out before sundown, as those of persons who had fallen

under sentence from Judge Lynch. In the expressive language of the

citizen who volunteered the information, there had been "thirty

funerals, and not one nateral death." Now that Judge Lynch had opened

court at our own door, we proposed to raise the question of

jurisdiction.

Armed, at once, we set off for a rescue, and, stumbling through the

darkness, had gone only a hundred yards or so, when we met the lynchers

returning. At their head, with a very dirty piece of rope around his

neck, walked our hostler, trembling all over, and chattering broken

English rapidly, in mingled fright and anger. The leader of the party

told us that the evidence not being quite sufficient for hanging, an

extra session of court had been called to be held immediately, and as

having some interest in the case, we were invited to seats on the jury.

The trial, we were further informed, was to be held in Rombeaux's own

house. This last was a new surprise, for reasons to be explained

presently. Rombeaux had been with us ever since leaving Hays, and had

gained his title of "Honest" from a particularly faithful discharge of

duty.

To him had been intrusted the supplies for hired men and horses. Three

of the Mexicans he had severally thrashed for stealing. Once, in the

night, on Silver Creek, we had heard a rattling at the medicine-chest,

and trembling for our limited stock of spirits, stole forth to catch

the culprit. On his knees by the open box was Rombeaux, replacing the

brandy-bottle, and we feared that he, too, had become a thief. But just

then, on the still air, came words of thanks to the Virgin Mary, for

having enabled him to awake in time to frighten away the robber. Nor was

this all; in the fierceness of his indignation, we beheld him sally

forth immediately afterward, and kick a sleeping Mexican out of his

blankets, on suspicion. Thereupon, we went back to bed with implicit

faith in Rombeaux, which had followed us ever since.

Had he not told us, moreover, of a vine-covered cottage in France, where

pretty Marie watched and waited until her lover could earn dowry

sufficient to match hers? It was the old story. A maiden fair tarried in

Europe, while a true knight ransacked foreign lands for fame and

fortune; and long since had all of us, save Sachem, exhausted our stock

of spare change to hasten the reunion.

Passing some of the lowest and most flashy-looking saloons in the place,

we entered a ravine, and soon stopped before a "dug-out." So much was it

the work of excavation, that the dirt roof was level with the earth

above, and the door seemed to open directly into the bank. We knocked,

and were answered promptly by a fat, gayly dressed French woman. This

was Rombeaux's wife, and here was Rombeaux's house. What a Marie and

vine-clad cottage these!

Without delay the trial commenced, the Frenchman and his wife occupying

places in the center, and the court seated on boxes, barrels, and the

bed. The evidence taken that night in the cabin was substantially the

following:

Two years before Jules Pigget, a native of France, accompanied by his

young wife, appeared on the railroad below, and solicited work. They

both found ready employment, and lived below Hays, in a dug-out, happy

and prosperous. Within a year came another Frenchman, our present Honest

Rombeaux. Across the water, he and Jules had been rival suitors for

Marie's hand; yet strangely enough, the newcomer was welcomed by the

young couple, and took up his abode with them. Matters prospered with

all three, and soon Jules was to be appointed tank-tender on the road.

That year came the great rain-storm, when so many families in Western

Kansas and Texas were drowned. Hundreds of people were living in

dug-outs, rude excavations in the banks of streams, with the roof on a

level with the bank above, but the room itself entirely below high-water

mark--a style of dwelling which, as no great rise had occurred in years,

had become quite popular among new-comers.

On the night of the great flood people went to bed as usual. The streams

had risen but little. At midnight the rain fell heavily; the firm

surface of the plains shed the waters like a roof; streams rose ten feet

in an hour, and the foaming currents, roaring like cataracts, came down

with the force of mighty tidal waves. Many dwellers in the dug-outs

sprang from their beds into water, to find egress by the doors

impossible, and were fortunate if they succeeded in escaping through

the chimneys or roofs. Whole families were drowned. Fort Hays, at the

fork of Big Creek, and supposed to be above high-water, was inundated,

six or eight soldiers being swept away, while the remainder were obliged

to seek safety on the roofs of the stone barracks. Large numbers of

mules, picketed on the adjacent bottoms, were drowned. Their picket-pins

fast in the earth, the animals were swept from their feet by the rising

waters, and towed under by the firmly-held lariats. Emigrants encamped

on the bottom heard the roar of the flood; with no time to harness, they

seized the tongues of their wagons themselves, but the rising tide

gained on them too rapidly, and they were glad to save life at the

expense of oxen and goods. The horrors of that night are indescribable,

and, to crown all, they took place amid a darkness that was total.

Above, was the roar of waters descending; below, the answering roar of

the floods, as they rolled madly onward, carrying in their strong arms

the wreck of farms, and corpses by the score.

On that night Jules, the husband, perished. Honest Rombeaux and Marie,

however, were rescued from the roof of their dwelling at daylight; and

afterward, when the flood had subsided, the body of Jules was taken from

the wash in the fire-place. And now came suspicion, and pointed over the

shoulders of the throng gathered around; for there was an ugly wound

half hidden in the dead husband's hair, and his fingers were bruised.

Some men did not hesitate to say boldly that when Rombeaux escaped

through the chimney, Jules stayed behind to assist his wife out, and

that when he tried to follow, he was struck on the head by his quondam

rival, and, still clinging to the chimney's edge, his fingers were

pounded until their hold was loosed, and the victim sucked under the

roof, against which the waters were already beating. The man and woman,

however, claimed that it was the whirl of the waters against pegs and

logs which had disfigured the corpse. Three weeks afterward they were

married.

"And now, gentlemen," said our foreman, rising from his barrel, when the

evidence was all in, "the question for the jury to decide is, Was it the

water that did it?"

A doubt existing in the case, we gave the prisoner its benefit; but

there was murder in the air, and Rombeaux knew it. Before morning he had

departed--Marie said for La Belle France, but, as the citizens generally

believed, really for Texas.

The next twenty-four hours constituted a regular field-day for the

Professor, being distinguished by an event which, from a scientific

stand-point, was among the most important of our entire expedition. This

was the discovery of a large fossil saurian, which we came upon while

exploring quite in sight of Sheridan, and not more than half a mile from

its eastern outskirts.

Descending the side of a deep, desolate rift in the earth, we found

ourselves among unmistakable traces of violent volcanic action. The

ground was strewn with black sand, and with yellow pebble-like masses,

apparently impure sulphur. There were numerous round cones also, looking

like diminutive craters, with edges and surface composed of bubble-like

lava, the material having evidently hardened while still distended by

the struggling gases. The appearance, to use a homely comparison, was

somewhat that of several low pots, over the edges of which boiling

molasses had poured, and then burned by the heat of the fire. Some

scattered objects, which at first we took for stumps of huge trees, upon

examination we found to be pillars of mud and rock, upheavals,

apparently, from volcanic action, and not the work of the floods, which,

in those primeval times, we knew, must have poured down the valley. They

would have answered, without much difficulty, for druidical altars, had

we only been in the land once inhabited by those long-bearded,

blood-thirsty priests of old.

Two or three poisoned cayotes and a dead raven were lying near some

bleached buffalo skulls, on which, as we presently discovered, daubs of

lard mixed with strychnine had been placed, and licked off by the

victims; and straightway, as genius of the scene, an unshaven,

woolen-shirted little man appeared in view, busily engaged in skinning a

wolf. We saluted him, and the response in French-English told us his

nationality at once. We found his name to be Louis, and his proper

occupation that of watchmaker. But as the pinchbeck time-pieces of the

frontier did not furnish enough repairing to take up his entire time, he

had many spare hours, and these he devoted to securing pelts. As buffalo

were not now in the vicinity, he larded their bones, with the success of

which we were eye-witnesses.

Louis was a wiry little Gaul, very positive in his ideas about every

thing. An animated conversation sprang up at once between him and the

Professor, and it soon became amusingly evident that his geological

ideas did not entirely accord with those of the Philosopher. A sudden

turn in the colloquy developed a fact of keen interest to even the most

unscientific member of our party.

Pointing to the other side of the valley, Louis told us that there lay

the bones of an immense snake, all turned to stone. This sudden voice

from the past ages sounded in the Professor's ears like the blare of a

trumpet to a warrior. He hurried us forward in the direction indicated,

and, locking arms with the bloody-shirted little Frenchman, strode on in

advance. I wish his class could have seen him thus traversing the

desolate bed where that old sunken volcano went to sleep. We were glad

that the latter was still asleep, and had never acquired the habit of

snorting into wakefulness, and pelting explorers with hot rocks.

What mysteries, I have often thought, might we not discover, on looking

down the throat of a healthy volcano, if some wise alchemist could only

brew a dose sufficiently powerful to stop the fiery fellow's foaming at

the mouth! Or, better still, if it could reach the bowels of the earth,

and keep the whole system quiet, while we, puny mortals, like trichina

mites, swarmed down the interior, and bored scientifically back to the

crust again. Earth's veins run golden blood, and we might be gorged with

that, perhaps, ere making exit into the sunshine again.

A shout from the further edge of the ravine cut short our speculations,

and called our attention to the Professor. He stood waving his slouched

hat for an instant, and then bent close over the ground, in earnest

scrutiny.

A few moments later, and we all stood beside the huge fossil. It lay

exposed, upon a bed of slate, looking very much like a seventy-foot

serpent, carved in stone. Part of the remains had been taken up to the

town, and spread over the bench, in the shop of Louis. From what was

left, the jaws appeared to have been originally over six feet long, the

sharp hooked and cone-shaped teeth being still very perfect. A few broad

fragments of ribs showed that, in circumference, the animal's body had

been about the size of a puncheon. We felt confident that the specimen

was a very rare one, as Muggs had never seen any thing like it, even in

England. It now rests in the museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"This fossil, gentlemen," said the Professor, "is that of a

_Mosasaurus_, a huge reptile which existed in the cretaceous sea. This

appears to be one of the largest members of the family yet discovered,

its length, as you will perceive, being over fifty feet. The species to

which it belonged swarmed in immense numbers, but were surrounded by

monsters even more remarkable than they. The deep which they inhabited

must have been constantly lashed and torn with their fierce conflicts;

for it was an age of war, and the powers of offense and defense, which

the monsters of that period possessed, were terrible. Winged reptiles

filled the air, in appearance more hideous than any creation of the

imagination. Following close upon the Reptilian came the Mammalian age,

and I hold that with the largest of the mammals came man, rude in tastes

and uncouth in form, but even then ruling as king of the animal

creation. Wielded by a strength equal to that of a gorilla, his club

would dash in the skull of any beast which dare dispute dominion with

him."

The text thus suggested him, the Professor then diverged into an

argument on his pet theory of man's early existence.

A trivial circumstance connected with our discovery arrested my

attention, and, from a sportsman's stand-point, suggested a little

theory of my own. The head of the saurian rested on the basin's edge,

its jaws touching, with their stony tips, the prairie, while down into

the valley below stretched the body and tail. This little fact

dove-tailed itself into some incidents of the past, and gave rise to

quite a train of speculation.

Some years ago I hunted alligators in Mississippi. Sitting on the bank

of a sluggish bayou, I would watch the surface of the water, close under

which were visible the noses of countless buffalo fish, floating as one

sees minnows do in glass jars. Under the hot sun all nature seemed

asleep. Soon, however, a black knot, an ugly dark wart, not larger than

one's two fists, would make its appearance, floating, like some charred

fragment, slowly along.

To a stranger, the only suspicious circumstance would have been, that

where there was no current whatever, it still continued its motion, the

same as before. The experienced eye recognized this object as the nose

of an alligator, behind which, and just at the surface, as it got

opposite, the ugly eyes would become visible, looking out for hogs or

dogs, as they came to drink under the bank.

I never had the patience to wait for the _finale_ of the scene; but had

I done so, I should have beheld the knot float closer in, and, just

after passing the victim, a tail would have come out of the water, and,

with a curving blow forward, knocked the prize out from shore, and in

front of the devourer's jaws. It was my good fortune, frequently, to

send a Ballard rifle-ball into the pirate's eyes. In such cases there

was usually a tremendous commotion in the water, accompanied by a strong

smell of musk, and the wounded reptile would then make straight for

shore, and run his head upon it. Under such circumstances, the creature

always sought at least that much of dry land to die upon, seeming as

anxious as man that its lamp of life should not be extinguished under

water.

This monster whose remains we were now exhuming was allied to the

alligator, as one of the great family of lizards, and had died in the

same manner--his head on the shores of the basin, his tail in its

depths. Perhaps in the convulsion of Nature which opened a path for the

waters to the ocean, and drained this inland sea, the fissure in which

we stood had gaped, and exhaled poisonous gases through the whirlpool

its suction created. The saurian monster of that strange age felt the

hungry vortex swallowing him, which meanwhile enveloped him in deadly

secretions, killing before devouring. With a last lurch through the

cauldron's ebbing tide, the lizard threw himself upon its edge, and

died.

Of the countless millions of saurians then existing, capricious Nature

had seized upon this one, to transmute it into an imperishable monument

of that extinct race. In those ages of roaring waters and hissing fires,

she had clothed the bones in stone, that they might withstand the

gnawing tooth of time, and thus handed them down to the wondering eyes

of the Nineteenth Century. Many of the pieces, it should be said, were

cracked and scarred, evidently by the action of fierce heat.

Constantly the earth is giving up these marvelous creations of the past,

in comparison with which the animals of the present are tame enough.

While we doubt a modern sea-serpent as impossible, we dig up fossilized

marine monsters, which could easily have swallowed the biggest snake

that credible sea-captain ever ran foul of.

[Illustration: DUG-OUT.]

CHAPTER XXIII.

FROM SHERIDAN TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS--THE COLORADO PORTION OF THE

PLAINS--THE GIANT PINES--ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH A BUFFALO--THINGS

GET MIXED--THE LEVIATHAN AT HOME--A CHAT WITH PROFESSOR

COPE--TWENTY-SIX INCH OYSTERS--REPTILES AND FISHES OF THE

CRETACEOUS SEA.

At Sheridan, we were very near the Colorado portion of the plain, which

stretched on for some hundreds of miles further westward, its further

line lapping the base of the Rocky Mountains. Into this territory we

passed, and spent a considerable period of time in its examination, but

while our experience was to us full of interest, any thing more extended

than a brief summary would occupy too much space here.

For the first one hundred miles, the soil deteriorated in quality, and

the sage-bush made its appearance, as did also the "Adam's needle" or

"Spanish bayonet." The latter makes an excellent substitute for soup,

but a wretched cushion to alight upon when thrown from your horse. (I

make the latter statement on the authority of Doctor Pythagoras.)

Brackish water was found at intervals, and white saline crystallizations

were seen along some of the streams. Although the soil was more sandy

than further east, the buffalo grass was abundant and nutritious, so

that at no time had we any difficulty in finding grazing for our cattle,

and the antelope that we killed were invariably in good condition. This

belt of eastern Colorado proved particularly rich in fossil wealth, to

the description of which we shall devote most of this chapter, and the

whole of that following. In the vicinity of the Big Sandy, we found

numerous lakes of clear water, surrounded by rich pasturage.

About one hundred miles west of the Kansas line, the country began

gradually improving, and continued to do so until we reached the

mountains. The Bijou basin, through which we passed, afforded excellent

range, and contained good streams. The country swarmed with antelopes,

and once we saw a herd running rapidly, which was four minutes in

crossing the road.

We had fine views of Pike's Peak, at a distance of one hundred and fifty

miles, the atmosphere there being remarkably pure and transparent.

Emigrants have often been deceived when, as their wagons crawled over

the crest which we named First View, the fine old Peak burst upon their

sight, and in their enthusiasm resolved to get an early start next day

and reach it before another night-fall. Our guide told us that when he

first crossed the plains, by the Platte route, his party camped for the

night near Monument Rock. After supper, two of the men and a woman set

out to cut their names in the stone, supposing it to be only a mile or

so distant, but when an hour's traveling brought the rock apparently no

nearer, they became discouraged and returned. Next day Monument Rock was

found to be twelve miles distant from their camping-place.

When within a day's journey of the mountains, we came in sight of

several tall objects standing out in bold relief upon the plain. These

proved to be giant pines, thrown out, like sentinels, from the forests

still far beyond and invisible. We could not resist the impulse to give

the first one we came to a hearty hug; for, after so many weeks upon the

treeless plain, these suggestions of mighty forests, with their mingled

sheen and shadow, were indeed welcome. The mountains of Colorado, with

their beautiful parks and wonderful young cities, have been so often

described that our notes would prove a useless addition to a somewhat

worn history, and hence we forbear taxing the reader's patience by

transcribing them here.

After studying the principles of mining and irrigation, we spent in the

neighborhood of one calendar month in getting views of sunrise and

sunset, from all the known peaks, to the end that no future tourist

might feel called upon to extend to us his kind commiseration for having

lost some particular outlook, where he had been, and which he considered

the best of all. To accomplish this thoroughly, we hewed paths up

hitherto inaccessible mountains, and at the end of the month made a

close calculation, and decided that we were a match for all such

tourists for at least five years to come. We then retraced our steps to

Buffalo Land, again entering the fossil belt near Fort Wallace.

One incident of our trip into Colorado deserves especial mention from

having been the first, as it will probably prove the last, attempt to

photograph the buffalo in his native wildness, at close quarters. The

idea was suggested in a letter which the Professor received from his

Eastern friends, who thought that actual photographs of the animals

inhabiting the plains would be a valuable addition to the ordinary

facilities for the study of natural history. As good fortune would have

it, there happened to be at Sheridan an artist, just arrived from Hays,

then prospecting for a location, and him we promptly engaged. The second

day out, two old buffaloes, near our road, were selected as good

subjects for first views. One of these was soon killed, the other making

his escape up a ravine near by. Although we had good reason to suspect

that the latter had been wounded, we did not pursue him, since it was

now near noon, and our artist, moreover, being of a somewhat timid

disposition, had expressly stipulated that we should keep near him, not

so much, he repeatedly assured us, as a body-guard for himself, as for

the protection of his new camera and outfit.

The dead bull we propped into position with our guns and other supports,

and while the artist carefully adjusted his instrument, Shamus began to

make preparations for lunch, and Mr. Colon and Semi set out for a few

minutes' pastime in catching bugs. They had been gone a full half hour,

and we were just remarking their prolonged absence somewhat impatiently,

when a loud cry from the nearer bank of the ravine fell on our ears, and

looking around we beheld Colon senior, and ditto junior, making toward

us at a tremendous rate of speed.

"Buffalo!" was all that we could catch of Semi's wild shouts, as he led

the chase directly toward us, his father having lost several seconds in

securing one of his specimen-cases, and on the instant the old bull that

we had wounded an hour before hove in sight, in full charge upon the

flying entomologists. As buffalo charges are short ones, he would have

stopped, no doubt, in a moment or so, had not Muggs and I, the only

members of our party who happened to have their guns at hand, opened

fire on him, and planted another bullet between his ribs. The effect was

to infuriate the old fellow tenfold, and down he came careering toward

us, with what I then thought the most vicious expression of countenance

I had ever seen on a buffalo's physiognomy.

The attack was so sudden, and the surprise so complete, that we were

most ingloriously stampeded, and fell back in hot haste upon our

reserves, the guide and teamsters, who, we knew, would be provided with

weapons and in good shape to cover our retreat. The sitting for which we

had made such elaborate preparations was abruptly terminated in the

manner shown in the accompanying engraving.

Fortunately for the artist, the blow originally intended for him was

delivered upon the legs of the instrument. His assailant being at length

dispatched, the poor fellow proceeded to pick out of the ruins of his

property what remained that might again be useful. He stated that his

stock, as well as the subject of buffalo photographing, was "rather

mixed," and that, if we would pay him for the damage done, he would

return. Next morning he left us, and thus it was that science lost the

projected series of valuable photographic views.

[Illustration: TAKING AND BEING TAKEN.]

Exploration gives us a past history of the plains which is interesting

in the extreme. Our party spent some weeks in exploring for fossils

beyond Sheridan, and were richly rewarded. In the great ocean which once

covered the land, the wonderful reptiles of the cretaceous age swarmed

in prodigious numbers, and their fierce struggles upon and under its

surface made "the deep to boil like a pot." The mysterious Leviathan,

described in the forty-first chapter of Job, had its prototype in more

than one of the monsters of that period:

"Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.

"Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

"Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

"His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

"The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in

themselves; they can not be moved.

"He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

"He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be

hoary."

The fossil remains of these reptiles are numerous, constituting a rich

mine of scientific wealth, which has been but very lightly worked.

Enough fossils can be obtained by future exploration to fill to

overflowing all the museums of the land.

We have no means of computing how long the cretaceous sea existed, but

we know that it passed away and was replaced by large fresh-water

lakes, those of the plains being bounded on the west by the Rocky

Mountains. Then succeeded an age of which we can catch but occasional

glimpses, and our longing becomes intense that we could know more. We

see a land fertile as the garden of Eden, surrounding beautiful lakes.

The climate is delightful, and earth, air, and water, are full of life.

Grand forests and flower-covered prairies nod and blossom under the kind

caresses of Nature. Water fowls numberless plunge under and skim over

the surface, and the songsters of the air warble forth their hymns of

praise. Over the pastures and through the forests roam an animal

multitude of which we can have but faint conception, but among the

number we recognize the lion with his royal mane, and the tiger with his

spots; and there also are the elephant, the mastodon, the rhinoceros,

the wild horse, and the great elk.

After our return, the eminent naturalist, Prof. Edward D. Cope, A. M.,

visited the plains, and spent some time in careful exploration there. As

he had previously received several fossils from us for examination, I

communicated with him not long since, asking a record of his trip. This

he very kindly consented to furnish, and, did space permit, I would

gladly publish entire the matter which he has placed at my disposal. No

apology can be necessary, however, for yielding to the temptation of

devoting two or three chapters to a chat by Prof. Cope with my readers.

The manuscript, as it lies before me, is entitled: "On the Geology and

Vertebrate Palaeontology of the Cretaceous Strata of Kansas." Let us

begin with "Part I--A General Sketch of the Ancient Life."

* * * * *

That vast level tract of our territory lying between Missouri and the

Rocky Mountains represents a condition of the earth's surface which has

preceded, in most instances, the mountainous or hilly type so prevalent

elsewhere, and may be called, in so far, incompletely developed. It does

not present the variety of conditions, either of surface for the support

of a very varied life, or of opportunities for access to its interior

treasures, so beneficial to a high civilization.

It is, in fact, the old bed of seas and lakes, which has been so

gradually elevated as to have suffered little disturbance. Consistently

with its level surface, its soils have not been carried away by rain and

flood, but rather cover it with a deep and widespread mantle. This is

the great source of its wealth in Nature's creations of vegetable and

animal life, and from it will be drawn the wealth of its future

inhabitants. On this account its products have a character of

uniformity; but viewed from the stand-point of the political

philosopher, so long as peace and steam bind the natural sections of our

country together, so long will the plains be an important element in a

varied economy of continental extent.

But they are not entirely uninterrupted. The natural drainage has worn

channels, and the streams flow below the general level. The ancient sea

and lake deposits have neither been pressed into very hard rock beneath

piles of later sediment, nor have they been roasted and crystallized by

internal heat. Although limestone rock, they easily yield to the action

of water, and so the side drainage into the creeks and rivers has

removed their high banks to from many rods to many miles from their

original positions. In many cases these banks or bluffs have retained

their original steepness, and have increased in elevation as the

breaking-down of the rock encroached on higher land. In other cases the

rain-channels have cut in without removing the intervening rocks at

once, and formed deep gorges or canyons, which sometimes extend to great

distances. They frequently communicate in every direction, forming

curious labyrinths, and when the intervening masses are cut away at

various levels, or left standing like monuments, we have the

characteristic peculiarities of "bad lands" or _mauvaises terres_.

In portions of Kansas tracts of this kind are scattered over the country

along the margins of the river and creek valleys and ravines. The upper

stratum of the rock is a yellow chalk; the lower, bluish, and the

brilliancy of the color increases the picturesque effect. From elevated

points the plains appear to be dotted with ruined villages and towns,

whose avenues are lined with painted walls of fortifications, churches,

and towers, while side alleys pass beneath natural bridges or expand

into small pockets and caverns, smoothed by the action of the wind,

carrying hard mineral particles.

But this is the least interesting of the peculiarities presented by

these rocks. On the level surfaces, denuded of soil, lie huge

oyster-shells, some opened and others with both valves together, like

remnants of a half-finished meal of some titanic race, who had been

frightened from the board, never to return. These shells are not

thickened like most of those of past periods, but contained an animal

which would have served as a meal for a large party of men. One of them

measured twenty-six inches across.

If the explorer searches the bottoms of the rain-washes and ravines, he

will doubtless come upon the fragment of a tooth or jaw, and will

generally find a line of such pieces leading to an elevated position on

the bank or bluff, where lies the skeleton of some monster of the

ancient sea. He may find the vertebral column running far into the

limestone that locks him in his last prison; or a paddle extended on the

slope, as though entreating aid; or a pair of jaws lined with horrid

teeth which grin despair on enemies they are helpless to resist. Or he

may find a conic mound, on whose apex glisten in the sun the bleached

bones of one whose last office has been to preserve from destruction the

friendly soil on which he reposed. Sometimes a pile of huge remains will

be discovered, which the dissolution of the rock has deposited on the

lower level, the force of rain and wash having been insufficient to

carry them away.

But the reader inquires, What is the nature of these creatures thus left

stranded a thousand miles from either ocean? How came they in the

limestones of Kansas, and were they denizens of land or sea? It may be

replied that our knowledge of this chapter of ancient history is only

about five years old, and has been brought to light by geological

explorations set on foot by Dr. Turner, Prof. Mudge, Prof. Marsh, W. E.

Webb, and the writer. Careful examinations of the remains discovered

show that they are all to be referred to the reptiles and fishes. We

find that they lived in the period called Cretaceous, at the time when

the chalk of England and the green sand marl of New Jersey were being

deposited, and when many other huge reptiles and fishes peopled both sea

and land in those quarters of the globe. The twenty-six species of

reptiles found in Kansas, up to the present time, varied from ten to

eighty feet in length, and represented six orders, the same that occur

in the other regions mentioned. Two only of the number were terrestrial

in their habits, and three were flyers; the remainder were inhabitants

of the salt ocean. When they swam over what are now the plains, the

coast-line extended from Arkansas to near Fort Riley, on the Kansas

River, and, passing a little eastward, traversed Minnesota to the

British Possessions, near the head of Lake Superior. The extent of sea

to the westward was vast, and geology has not yet laid down its

boundary; it was probably a shore now submerged beneath the waters of

the North Pacific Ocean.

Far out on its expanse might have been seen in those ancient days, a

huge snake-like form which rose above the surface and stood erect, with

tapering throat and arrow-shaped head; or swayed about, describing a

circle of twenty feet radius above the water. Then it would dive into

the depths, and naught would be visible but the foam caused by the

disappearing mass of life. Should several have appeared together, we

can easily imagine tall twining forms, rising to the height of the masts

of a fishing fleet, or like snakes twisting and knotting themselves

together. This extraordinary neck, for such it was, rose from a body of

elephantine proportions; and a tail of the serpent pattern balanced it

behind. The limbs were probably two pairs of paddles, like those of

_Plesiosaurus_, from which this diver chiefly differed in the

arrangement of the bones of the breast. In the best known species,

twenty-two feet represent the neck, in a total length of fifty feet.

This is the _Elasmosaurus platyurus_ (Cope), a carnivorous sea reptile,

no doubt adapted for deeper waters than many of the others. Like the

snake-bird of Florida, it probably often swam many feet below the

surface, raising the head to the distant air for a breath, then

withdrawing it and exploring the depths forty feet below, without

altering the position of its body. From the localities in which the

bones have been found in Kansas, it must have wandered far from land,

and that many kinds of fishes formed its food, is shown by the teeth and

scales found in the position of its stomach.

A second species, of somewhat similar character and habits, differed

very much in some points of structure. The neck was drawn out to a

wonderful degree of attenuation, while the tail was relatively very

stout, more so, indeed, than in the _Elasmosaurus_, as though to balance

the anterior regions while occupied in various actions, _e. g._, while

capturing its food. This was a powerful swimmer, its paddles measuring

four feet in length, with an expanse, therefore, of about eleven feet.

It is known as _Polycotylus latipinnis_ (Cope).

The two species just described formed a small representation, in our

great interior sea, of an order which swarmed at the same time, or near

it, over the gulfs and bays of old Europe. There they abounded twenty to

one. Perhaps one reason for this was the almost entire absence of the

real rulers of the waters of Ancient America, viz: the _Pythonomorphs_.

These sea-serpents, for such they were, embrace more than half the

species found in the limestone rocks in Kansas, and abound in those of

New Jersey and Alabama. Only four have been seen as yet in Europe.

Researches into their structure have shown that they were of wonderful

elongation of form, especially of tail; that their heads were large,

flat, and conic, with eyes directed partly upwards; that they were

furnished with two pairs of paddles like the flippers of a whale, but

with short or no portion representing the arm. With these flippers and

the eel-like strokes of their flattened tail they swam--some with less,

others with greater speed. They were furnished, like snakes, with four

rows of formidable teeth on the roof of the mouth. Though these were not

designed for mastication, and without paws for grasping could have been

little used for cutting, as weapons for seizing their prey they were

very formidable. And here we have to consider a peculiarity of these

creatures in which they are unique among animals. Swallowing their prey

entire, like snakes, they were without that wonderful expansibility of

throat, due in the latter to an arrangement of levers supporting the

lower jaw. Instead of this each half of that jaw was articulated or

jointed at a point nearly midway between the ear and the chin. This was

of the ball and socket type, and enabled the jaw to make an angle

outward, and so widen, by much, the space inclosed between it and its

fellow. The arrangement may be easily imitated by directing the arms

forward, with the elbows turned outward and the hands placed near

together. The ends of these bones were in the Pythonomorphs as

independent as in the serpents, being only bound by flexible ligaments.

By turning the elbows outward, and bending them, the space between the

arms becomes diamond-shaped, and represents exactly the expansion seen

in these reptiles, to permit the passage of a large fish or other body.

The arms, too, will represent the size of jaws attained by some of the

smaller species. The outward movement of the basal half of the jaw

necessarily twists in the same direction the column-like bone to which

it is suspended. The peculiar shape of the joint by which the last bone

is attached to the skull, depends on the degree of twist to be

permitted, and, therefore, to the degree of expansion of which the jaws

were capable. As this differs much in the different species, they are

readily distinguished by the column or "quadrate" bone when found. There

are some curious consequences of this structure, and they are here

explained as an instance of the mode of reconstruction of extinct

animals from slight materials. The habit of swallowing large bodies

between the branches of the under-jaw necessitates the prolongation

forward of the mouth of the gullet; hence the throat in the

Pythonomorphs must have been loose and almost as baggy as a pelican's.

Next, the same habit must have compelled the forward position of the

glottis or opening of the windpipe, which is always in front of the

gullet. Hence these creatures must have uttered no other sound than a

hiss, as do animals of the present day which have a similar structure,

as for instance, the snakes. Thirdly, the tongue must have been long and

forked and for this reason: its position was still anterior to the

glottis, so that there was no space for it except it were inclosed in a

sheath beneath the windpipe when at rest, or thrown out beyond the jaws

when in motion. Such is the arrangement in the nearest living forms, and

it is always, in these cases, cylindric and forked.

The flying saurians of the cretaceous sea of Kansas, though not numerous

in species, were of remarkable size. Though their remains are generally

flattened by the pressure of the overlying rocks, two species have left

a complete record of their form and dimensions. One of them

(_Ornithochirus Tarpyia_) spread eighteen feet between the tips of the

wings, while the _O. umbrosus_ covered nearly twenty-five feet with his

expanse. These strange creatures flapped their leathery wings over the

waves, and, often plunging, drew many a fish from its companions of the

shoal; or, soaring at a safe distance, viewed the sports and combats of

the more powerful saurians of the sea; or, trooping to the shore at

nightfall, suspended themselves to the cliffs by the claw-bearing

fingers of their wing-limbs.

[Illustration: DEVELOPING--ONE OF THE FIRST FAMILIES.]

In connection with the subject of the old lakes and their fertile

shores, where human beings, it might reasonably be expected, once lived

so comfortably, the editor of this volume begs to lay before the reader

(in a sort of parenthesis, for which Professor Cope is in no way

responsible) an effort of Sachem's. He dedicated it to Darwin, and was

pleased to call it, notwithstanding it smells more of the fossil-bone

caves than the fields,

THE PRIMEVAL MAN'S PASTORAL.

My grandfather Jock was an ape,

His grandfather Twist was a worm;

Each age has developed in shape,

And ours has got rid of the squirm;

If the law of selection will work in our case,

We'll develop, in time, to a wonderful race.

My sweetheart has claws, and her face

Is covered with bristles and hair;

She's feline in nature and grace,

She's apt to get out on a tear,

She's cursed with a passion to sing after night;

But these she'll evolve, and develop all right.

One race has evolved in the sea,

And partly got rid of their scales;

Though cousin by faces to me,

They're cousin to fishes by tails;

But they'll ever remain simply mer-men and women,

For selection won't work, in the world that they swim in.

'T is said that Gorilla the Great,

Who rules as the chief of our clan,

Has found in the annals of fate,

We're soon to evolve into man;

Furthermore, that our children will doubt whence they came,

Till a fellow named Darwin shall put them to shame.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONTINUED BY COPE--THE GIANTS OF THE SEAS--TAKING OUT FOSSILS IN A

GALE--INTERESTING DISCOVERIES--THE GEOLOGY OF THE PLAINS.

The giants of the Pythonomorphs of Kansas have been called _Liodon

proriger_ (Cope) and _Liodon dyspelor_ (Cope). The first must have been

abundant, and its length could not have been far from sixty feet,

certainly not less. Its physiognomy was rendered peculiar by a long

projecting muzzle, reminding one of that of the blunt-nosed sturgeon of

our coast, but the resemblance was destroyed by the correspondingly

massive end of the branches of the lower jaw. Though clumsy in

appearance, such an arrangement must have been effective as a ram, and

dangerous to his enemies in case of collision. The writer once found the

wreck of an individual of this species strewn around a sunny knoll

beside a bluff, and his conic snout, pointing to the heavens, formed a

fitting monument, as at once his favorite weapon, and the mark

distinguishing all his race.

Very different was the _Liodon dyspelor_, a still larger animal than the

last, with a formidable armature. It was indeed the longest of known

reptiles, and probably equal to the great finner whale of modern oceans.

The circumstances attending the discovery of one of these, will always

be a pleasant recollection to the writer. A part of the face, with

teeth, was observed projecting from the side of a bluff by a companion

in exploration, (Lieut. Jas. H. Whitten, U. S. A.), and we at once

proceeded to follow up the indication with knives and picks. Soon the

lower jaws were uncovered, with their glistening teeth, and then the

vertebrae and ribs. Our delight was at its height when the bones of the

pelvis and part of the hind limb were laid bare, for they had never been

seen before in the species and scarcely in the order. While lying on the

bottom of the cretaceous sea, the carcass had been dragged hither and

thither by the sharks and other rapacious animals, and the parts of the

skeleton were displaced and gathered into a small area. The massive tail

stretched away into the bluff, and after much laborious excavation we

left a portion of it to more persevering explorers. The species of

_Clidastes_ did not reach such a size as some of the _Liodons_, and were

of elegant and flexible build. To prevent their habits of coiling from

dislocating the vertebral column, these had an additional pair of

articulations at each end, while their muscular strength is attested by

the elegant striae and other sculptures which appear on all their bones.

Three species of this genus occur in the Kansas strata, the largest

(_Clidastes cineriarum_, Cope) reaching forty feet in length. The

discovery of a related species (_Holcodus coryphaeus_, Cope) was made by

the writer under circumstances of difficulty peculiar to the plains.

After examining the bluffs for half a day without result, a few bone

fragments were found in a wash above their base. Others led the way to

a ledge forty or fifty feet from both summit and foot, where, stretched

along in the yellow chalk, lay the projecting portions of the whole

monster. A considerable number of vertebrae were found preserved by the

protective embrace of the roots of a small bush, and, when they were

secured, the pick and knife were brought into requisition to remove the

remainder. About this time one of the gales, so common in that region,

sprang up, and, striking the bluff fairly, reflected itself upwards. So

soon as the pick pulverized the rock, the limestone dust was carried

into eyes, nose, and every available opening in the clothing. I was

speedily blinded, and my aid disappeared into the canyon, and was seen

no more while the work lasted. Only the enthusiasm of the student could

have endured the discomfort, but to him it appeared a most unnecessary

"conversion of force" that a geologist should be driven from the field

by his own dust. A handkerchief tied over the face, and pierced by

minute holes opposite the eyes, kept me from total blindness, though

dirt in abundance penetrated the mask. But a fine relic of creative

genius was extricated from its ancient bed, and one that leads its genus

in size and explains its structure.

On another occasion, riding along a spur of a yellow chalk bluff, some

vertebrae lying at its foot met my eye. An examination showed that the

series entered the rock, and, on passing round to the opposite side the

jaws and muzzle were seen projecting from it, as though laid bare for

the convenience of the geologist. The spur was small and of soft

material, and we speedily removed it in blocks, to the level of the

reptile, and took out the remains, as they laid across the base from

side to side. A genus related to the last is _Edestosaurus_. A species

of thirty feet in length, and of elegant proportions has been called _E.

tortor_ (Cope.) Its slenderness of body was remarkable, and the large

head was long and lance-shaped. Its flippers tapered elegantly, and the

whole animal was more of a serpent than any other of its tribe. Its

lithe movements brought many a fish to its knife-shaped teeth, which are

more efficient and numerous than in any of its relatives. It was found

coiled up beneath a ledge of rock, with its skull lying undisturbed in

the center. A species distinguished for its small size and elegance is

_Clidastes pumilus_ (Marsh). This little fellow was only twelve feet in

length, and was probably unable to avoid occasionally furnishing a meal

for some of the rapacious fishes which abounded in the same ocean.

Tortoises were the boatmen of the cretaceous waters of the eastern

coast, but none had been known from the deposits of Kansas until very

recently. One species now on record (_Protostega gigas_, Cope), is of

large size, and strange enough to excite the attention of naturalists.

It is well known that the house or boat of the tortoise or turtle is

formed by the expansion of the usual bones of the skeleton till they

meet and unite, and thus become continuous. Thus the lower shell is

formed of united ribs of the breast and breast-bone, with bone deposited

in the skin. In the same way the roof is formed by the union of the

ribs with bone deposited in the skin. In the very young tortoise the

ribs are separate as in other animals; as they grow older they begin to

expand at the upper side of the upper end, and, with increased age, the

expansion extends throughout the length. The ribs first come in contact

where the process commences, and in the land-tortoise they are united to

the end. In the sea-turtle, the union ceases a little above the ends.

The fragments of the _Protostega_ were seen by one of the men projecting

from a ledge of a low bluff. Their thinness and the distance to which

they were traced excited my curiosity, and I straightway attacked the

bank with the pick. After several square feet of rock had been removed,

we cleared up one floor, and found ourselves well repaid. Many long

slender pieces, of two inches in width, lay upon the ledge. They were

evidently ribs, with the usual heads, but behind each head was a plate

like the flattened bowl of a huge spoon placed crosswise. Beneath these

stretched two broad plates two feet in width, and no thicker than

binders' board. The edges were fingered, and the surface hard and

smooth. All this was quite new among fully grown animals, and we at once

determined that more ground must be explored, for further light. After

picking away the bank and carving the soft rock, new masses of strange

bones were disclosed. Some bones of a large paddle were recognized, and

a leg bone. The shoulder-blade of a huge tortoise came next, and further

examination showed that we had stumbled on the burial-place of one of

the largest species of sea-turtle yet known. The single bones of the

paddle were eight inches long, giving the spread of the expanded

flippers as considerably over twenty feet. But the ribs were those of an

ordinary turtle just born, and the great plates represented the bony

deposit in the skin, which, commencing independently in modern turtles,

united with the expanded ribs below, at an early day. But it was

incredible that the largest of known turtles should be but just hatched,

and for this and other reasons it has been concluded that this "ancient

mariner" is one of those forms not uncommon in old days, whose

incompleteness in some respects points to the truth of the belief, that

animals have assumed their modern perfection, by a process of growth

from more simple beginnings.

The cretaceous ocean of the West was no less remarkable for its fishes

than for its reptiles. Sharks do not seem to have been so common as in

the old Atlantic, but it swarmed with large predaceous forms related to

the salmon and saury.

[Illustration: THE SEA WHICH ONCE COVERED THE PLAINS.

Elasmosaurus platyurus.

2. Liodon proriger.

3, 4, 5. Ornithochirus umbrosus.

6. Ornithochirus harpyia.

7. Protostega.

8. Polycotylus latipinnis.]

Vertebrae and other fragments of these species project from the worn

limestone in many places. I will call attention to, perhaps, the most

formidable, as well as the most abundant of these. It is the one whose

bones most frequently crowned knobs of shale, which had been left

standing amid surrounding destruction. The density and hardness of the

bones shed the rain off on either side, so that the radiating gutters

and ravines finally isolated the rock mass from that surrounding. The

head was some inches longer than that of a fully grown grizzly bear, and

the jaws were deeper in proportion to their length. The muzzle was shorter

and deeper than that of a bull-dog. The teeth were all sharp cylindric

fangs, smooth and glistening, and of irregular size. At certain distances

in each jaw they projected three inches above the gum, and were sunk one

inch into the bony support, being thus as long as the fangs of a tiger,

but more slender. Two such fangs crossed each other on each side of the

middle of the front. This fish is known as _Portheus molossus_ (Cope).

Besides the smaller fishes, the reptiles no doubt supplied the demands

of his appetite.

The ocean in which flourished this abundant and vigorous life, was at

last completely inclosed on the west, by elevation of sea-bottom, so

that it only communicated with the Atlantic and Pacific at the Gulf of

Mexico and the Arctic Sea. The continued elevation of both eastern and

western shores contracted its area, and when ridges of the sea-bottom

reached the surface, forming long low bars, parts of the water area were

inclosed and connection with salt water prevented. Thus were the living

beings imprisoned and subjected to many new risks to life. The stronger

could more readily capture the weaker, while the fishes would gradually

perish through the constant freshening of the water. With the death of

any considerable class the balance of food supply would be lost, and

many larger species would disappear from the scene. The most omnivorous

and enduring would longest resist the approach of starvation, but would

finally yield to inexorable fate; the last one caught by the rising

bottom among shallow pools from which his exhausted energies could not

extricate him.

PART II--GEOLOGY.