Page:The Extermination of the American Bison.djvu/223

 into him on various occasions. One was found sticking fast in one of the lumbar vertebræ.

After a chase of several miles Mr. McNaney finally overhauled his cow and killed her, which brought the number of buffaloes taken on the fall hunt up to twenty-two. We spent the night at the Buffalo Buttes and returned to camp the next day. Neither on that day nor the one following did the wagons arrive, and on the evening of the 8th we learned from the cowboys of the N-bar camp on Sand Creek that our courier, Private West, had not been seen or heard from since he left their camp on November 24, and evidently had got lost and frozen to death in the bad lands.

The next day we started out to search for Private West, or news of him, and spent the night with Messrs. Brodburst and Andrews, at their camp on Sand Creek. On the 10th, Mr. McNaney and I hunted through the bad lands over the course our courier should have taken, while Messrs. Russell and Brodhurst looked through the country around the head of the Little Dry. When McNaney and I reached the LU bar ranch that night we were greatly rejoiced at finding that West was alive, although badly frost-bitten, and in Fort Keogh.

It appears that instead of riding due east to the LU bar ranch, Le lost his way in the bad lands, where the buttes all look alike when covered with snow, and rode south west. It is at all times an easy matter for even a cowboy to get lost in Montana if the country is new to him, and when there is snow on the ground the difficulty of finding one's way is increased tenfold. There is not only the danger of losing one's way, but the still greater danger of getting ingulfed in a deep coulée full of loose snow, which may easily cause both horse and rider to perish miserably. Even the most experienced riders sometimes ride into coulées which are level full of snow and hidden from sight.

Private West's experience was a terrible one, and also a wonderful case of self-preservation. It shows what a man with a cool head and plenty of grit can go through and live. When he left us he wore two undershirts, a heavy blanket shirt, a soldier's blouse and overcoat, two pairs of drawers, a pair of soldier's woolen trousers, and a pair of overalls. On his feet be wore three pairs of socks, a pair of low shoes with canvas leggins, and he started with his feet tied up in burlaps. His head and hands were also well protected. He carried a 38-caliber revolver, but, by a great oversight, only sis matches. When he left the N bar camp, instead of going due east toward the LU-bar ranch, he swung around and went southwest, clear around the head of the Little Dry, and finally struck the Porcupine south of our camp. The first night out he made a fire with sage-brush, and kept it going all night. The second night be also had a fire, but it took his last match to make it. During the first three days he had no food, but on the fourth he