Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/51

Rh being in my favor, she did not discern me, but put her head down and went on feeding. I succeeded in crawling quite close enough to her, drew a bead on her and fired. At the crack of the rifle she came to the ground, "as dead as a door-nail," much to the surprise of Uncle Kit and Mr. Hughes, who were watching me from a distance.

When the animal fell, I threw my hat in the air and gave a yell that would have done credit to an Apache warrior.

Uncle Kit and I dressed the buffalo and carried the meat into camp while Mr. Hughes gathered wood for the night-fires.

I could scarcely sleep that night for thinking of my buffalo, and could I have seen Henry Becket that night I would almost have stunned him with my stories of frontier life.

The novice is ever enthusiastic.

The following morning we woke up early, and off, still heading up the Arkansas river for Bent's Fort, and from here on the buffalo were numerous, and we had that sort of fresh meat until we got good and tired of it.

The second day out from Cow Creek, in the afternoon, we saw about twenty Indians coming towards us. At the word, "Indians," I could feel my hair raise on end, and many an Indian has tried to raise it since.

This was my first sight of the red man. He looked to me to be more of a black man.

Uncle Kit asked Mr. Hughes what Indians he thought they were. The reply was that he thought them to be