INTRODUCTION.
In presenting these Reminiscences to the reader the author wishes to say that they were written and compiled by an uneducated man, who is now 63 years of age, with no pretensions to literary attainments, having a very meager knowledge of the common-school branches. In placing these recollections in book form there is an endeavor all along the line to state the facts as they occurred to me. The tragic deaths seen by the author in dance-hall and saloon have been omitted, in this work. But to that band of hardy, tireless hunters that helped, as all army officers declared, more to settle the vexed Indian question in the five years of the greatest destruction of wild animals in the history of the world's hunting, the author especially devotes that portion of the book pertaining to the buffaloes. The incidents connected with the tragic death of Marshall Sewall will be appreciated, I trust, by all lovers of fair play. Thomas Lumpkins met his death in a manner that could be expected by all old plainsmen. There were so many tragic incidents that occurred during the author's experience after leaving New Mexico, that it was difficult for him to segregate one event from another, in order to prepare a presentable book,—one that could be read in every home in the land without shocking the finer sensibilities of the reader. And it is the sincere hope and desire of the author that this design and object have been accomplished.
JOHN R. COOK.
CONTENTS
| Page | |
| Chapter I. | 1 |
| Boyhood in Territory of Kansas, 1857.—Day Fort Sumter was Fired on.—First Confederate Army at Independence, Missouri.—Search for Guns.—A Glimpse of Quantrill.—Guerrillas and the Money Belt.—My Uniform.—Quantrill at Baxter Springs. | |
| Chapter II. | 27 |
| Early Settlements of Southeast Kansas.—Texas Cattle Fever Trouble.—The Osage Indians and Firewater.—Poor Mrs. Bennett.—How Terwilligjer's Cattle Stampeded.—Why the Curtises Moved On.—The Odens Murder Parker.—Parker was Avenged.—Jane Heaton and Her Smith & Wesson Revolver.—What Became of the Benders. | |
| Chapter III. | 45 |
| A Trip to New Mexico.—Prospecting Around the Base of Mount
Baldy.—My Experience with a Cinnamon Bear.—Wail of the Mountain Lion.—Tattooed
Natives, Bound for the Texas Panhandle.—I Lanced a Buffalo.—Loaned My
Gun and Suffered. |
|
| Chapter IV. | 59 |
| "Lost"—"Alone at Night in the Wilds"—"I Quicksanded in the Canadian."—The Beaver Played in the Water.—Second Day and Night it Snowed.—The Wolves Serenade Me.—Was Getting Snowblind—Third Night Out, Suffered in Body and Mind.—Following Morning, Found Adobe Walls.—And the Good Samaritans were There. | |
| Chapter V. | 81 |
| We Move.—Acres of Buffalo.—Indian Scare—Killed Two Bear.—First Wedding in the Panhandle.—At Last—Fort Elliot.—Meet Romero and Son.—The Great Buffalo-slayer.—What Gen. Sheridan Said.—The Great Slaughter Began. | |
| Chapter VI. | 116 |
| Two Hundred and Three Killed at One Time.—How We Skinned Buffalo.—I saw a Panther.—Cyrus saw a Bear.—I Killed an Eagle.—A Great, Moving Mass of Buffalo.—I Kill a Cougar.—Hickey, the Hide-buyer.—Cyrus Meets a Bear.—The Wounded Panther.—The Weird Night Watch.—Left Alone.—On Meat Straight, Fourteen Days. | |
| Chapter VII. | 151 |
| Hides Bound for the Railroad.—I Go Into Partnership.—We Start North.—Grand Wild Animal Show.—The Wichita Mountains.—Wrong-wheel Jones.—I Killed Eighty-eight Buffalo.—I was Verdigris-Poisoned.—Traded Eagle Feathers for Pony.—Back South for a Winter's Hunt. | |
| Chapter VIII. | 180 |
| Indian Rumors.—Nigger Horse Runs Away.—A Close Midnight Call.—A Comanche Shoots at Me.—Rankin Moore Kills His Horse.—Diabolical Deeds.—Killing and Scalping of Sewall.—We Dug His Grave with Butcher-knives.—The Pocket Cañon Fight.—Hosea.—They Scatter Like Quails.—Plains Telegraphy. | |
| Chapter IX. | 213 |
| The Warrior's Last Ride.—Muffled Feet.—Bit off More Than We Could Chew.—The Cunning Warriors Tricked Us.—We Carried Water in My Boots.—Captain Lee Captures Their Camp.—How Lumpkins was Killed.—The Sewall Gun Hoodooed the Comanches.—The Blood-curdling Yell, and We were Afoot.—They Sure Waked Us Up.—Gathering the Clams. | |
| Chapter X. | 246 |
| The Staked Plains Horror.—A Forlorn Hope.—The Fate of the Benders.—Captain Nolan and His Troopers.—Quana Parker.—Rees, the Hero of the Hour. | |
| Chapter XI. | 274 |
| Water at Last.—"Yes, Sah"—"Take Him, Sah."—Drinking Horse-blood—They Had Given Up to Die.—Rees Said, "Find Carr."—He was Lying in the Shade of His Horse.—It was Rees and the Three Men.—We Ignited Soap-Balls.—Twenty Years in Prison.—We are All Here.—We Gather up some Horses.—Last Great Slaughter of the Buffalo.—Our Kangaroo Court, Always in Session.—Judge ("Wild Bill") Kress on the Bench. | |
| Chapter XII. | 297 |
| Sol Rees.—Dull Knife Raid, 1878.—His Night Ride from Kirwin to the Prairie Dog.—Elected Captain of the Settlers.—Single-handed Combat with a Warrior on the Sappa.—Meeting Major Mock and U. S. Soldiers.—Sworn in as Guide and Scout.—On a Hot Trail.—The Four Butchered Settlers on the Beaver.—Finds Lacerated, Nude Girl.—On the Trail.—Finds Annie Pangle's Wedding Dress.—Overtook Played-out Warrior.—Hurry to Ogalalla.—Lost the Trail.—Goes to New Mexico.—Meets Kit Carson's Widow.—Down with Mountain Fever.—Living at Home in Quiet. | |
| Chapter XIII. | 315 |
| Mortimer N. Kress ("Wild Bill").—His Heroic Example at the Battle of Casa Amarilla.—His Unselfish Generosity.—His Sublime Fortitude in the Hour-of Distress.—He Stood as a Buffer between Savagery and Civilization.—He is Geography Itself. | |
| Chapter XIV. | 334 |
| M. V. Daily. | |
| MISCELLANEOUS STORIES OF BUFFALO LAND. | |
| Stampede of the Wheel-Oxen, | 329 |
| Favorite Hunting-Grounds, | 339 |
| The Unseen Tragedy, | 344 |
| Bellfield and the Dried Apples, | 346 |
| An Incident of Ben Jackson's Experience, | 348 |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| John R. Cook, | Frontispiece |
| Page | |
| The Oldest Inhabitant, | 57 |
| Cook Serenaded by Wolves, | 71 |
| Nigger Horse and His Horse, | 181 |
| Comanche Medicine Man, | 192 |
| Indians Killing Buffalo in Texas, | 197 |
| An Apache Family, | 218 |
| Pocket Cañon Fight, | 225 |
| Staked Plains Fight, | 236 |
| Mrs. Alice V. Cook, | 295 |
| John Nelson Crump, | 296 |
| Wayne Solomon Rees, | 297 |
| Sol Rees, | 298 |
| Fight of Sol Rees with Indian, | 302 |
| Mortimer N. ("Wild Bill") Kress, | 315 |
| Alene Kress, | 315 |
| Mart. Dailey, | 324 |
| Spring of the Shining Rock, | 352 |
THE BORDER AND THE BUFFALO.