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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 1899)
Conservative. 9 - and it is safe to sny that there never wore two human beings more thor oughly perforated , more persistently punctured and intensely irritated with flea bites thnn were the two guests at Mabins' ranch during all that long and agonizing night. However , there came on end to the darkness and the attempt at sleep , and after an early breakfast wo re sumed the Fort Kearnoyward journey to arrive at its end in the late afternoon of the fourth day. FOUT KIAKHIY IN 1861. There I found Colonel Alexander , of the regular army , in command. John Heth , of Virginia , was the sutler for the post and after some consultation and advisement it was determined that we might without much danger from In dians go south to the Republican river for a buffalo hunt. At that time the Cheyenues , who were a blood-thirsty tribe , were in arms against the white people and yearning for their scalps wherever found. But to avoid or miti gate dangers Colonel Alexander consid erately detailed Lieutenant Bush with twelve enlisted men , all soldiers of ex perience in the Indian country , to go with us to the Republican valley as an escort or guard in military parlance , on detached service. Thus our party moved southward with ample force of arms for its defence. The four hunters of the expedition were Lieutenant Bush , John Heth , John Talbot ( who had been honorably dis charged from the regular army after some years of service ) and myself. The excursion was massed and ready for departure at 8 o'clock on the bright morning of October G , 1861. The course taken was nearly due south from the present site of Kearney city in Buffalo county. The expedition consisted of two large army wagons , four mules attached to each wagon , a light , two-horse spring wagon and four trained riding horses experienced in the chase , together with twelve soldiers of the regular U. S. army and the gentlemen already named. It had not traveled more than twenty- five miles south of Kearney before it came upon view of an immense and seemingly uncountable herd of buffalo. PIHST SIGHT OP BUFFALOES. My first sight of these primitive beeves of the plains I shall never forget. They were so distant that I could not make out their individual forms and I at once jumped to the conclusion that they wore only an innumerable lot of crows sitting about upon the knobs and hillocks of the prairies. But in a few moments , when wo came nearer , they materialized and were , sure enough , real bellowing , snort ing wallowing buffaloes. At first they appeared to give no heed to our outfit but after we saddled and mounted our horses and rode into their midst they began to scatter and to form into smal bands , single file. The herd separated into long , black swaying stringsand | eacl string was headed by the best meat among its numbers. The leading animal vas generally a three-year-old cow. Dach of these strings , or singlo-filo bands , ran in a general southeast direction and each of the four hunters Bush , Heth , Talbot and the writer selected a string and went for the pre-eminent animal vith enthusiasm , zeal and impulsive toolhardiness. In the beginning of the pell-mell , lurry-scurry race it seemed that it would bo very easy to speedily overtake ; ho desired individual buffalo that we 11 tended to shoot and kill. The whole jand seemed to run leisurely. They nade a sort of sidewise gait , a movement such as one often sees in a dog running ahead of a wagon on a country road. Upon the level prairie wo made very perceptible gains upon them , but when a declivity was reached and wo made a down hill gallop wo were obliged to rein in and hold up the horses , or take the chances of a broken leg or neck by being ditched in a badger or wolf hole. But die Buffaloes with their heavy shoulders and huge hair-matted heads lumbered along down the inclines with great iclerity , gaining so much upon us that every now and then one of them would drop out from the line upon reaching an attractive depression , roll over two or three times inluVwallow , " jump up and join his fleeing fellows before we could reach him. But finally after swinging and sway ing hither and thither with the band or line as it swayed and swung , the lead animal was reached and with much exultation and six very nervous shots put to death. My trophy proved to be a buffalo cow of two or three years of age ; and after she had dropped to the ground , a nimble calf , about three months old , evidently her progeny began making circles around and around the dead mother and bleating pitifully , enlarging the circle each time , until at last it went out of sight onto the prairie and alone , all the other parts of the herd having scattered beyond the ris ing bluffs and far away. SAVAGE ENTHUSIASM. That afternoon was fuller of tense excitement , savage enthusiasm , zeal auc barbaric ambition than any other thai could be assorted from my life of more than sixty years. There was a certaii amount of ancestral heathenism aroused in every man , spurring a horse to greatei swiftness , in that chase for large game And there was imperial exultation o ; the primitive barbaric instinct when the game fell dead and its whooping captors surrounded its breathless carcass. WASTE. But the wastefulness of the buffalo hunter of those days was wicked boyouc description and , because of its uttei recklessness of the future , wholly un pardonable. Only the hump ribs , the tongue and perhaps now and then one hind quarter were saved for use fron each animal. The average number of xmnds of moat saved from the buffaloes tilled between the years 1800 and 1870 vould not exceed twenty. In truth , housands of buffaloes were killed mere- y to get their tongues and pelts. The nexcusablo and unnecessary extormina- ion of those beef-producing and very valuable fur-bearing animals only illus- rates the extravagance of thoughtless- icss and mental nearsightedness in the American people when dealing with practical and far-reaching questions. It also demonstrates , in some degree , the ncapacity of the ordinary overy-day aw-makers of the United States. Game aws have seldom been enacted in any of the states before the virtual extinction of the game they purposed to protect , rlero in Nebraska among big game were many Imndreds of thousands of buf faloes , tons of thousands of elk and deer and antelope , while among smaller game ; he wild txirkey and the prairie chicken were innumerable. But today Nebraska jamo is practically extinct. Even the prairie chicken and the wild turkey are seldom found anywhere along the Mis souri river bluffs in the southern and eastern part of the commonwealth. Looking back : what might have been accomplished for the conservation of game in the trans-Missouri country is suggested so forcibly that one wonders at the stupendous stupidity which indolently permitted its destruction. TUUKEY CHEEK. The first night outward and southeast ward from Kearney wo came to Turkey Creek which empties into the Republi can river. There , after dark , tents were pitched at a point near the place where the government had in previous years established kilns and burned lime for the use of soldiers in building quarters for themselvesand the officers at Fort Kear ney which was constructed in 1847 by Stewart L. Van Vliet , now a retired brigadier general and the oldest living graduate of West Point. After a sump tuous feast of buffalo steak , a strong pint of black coffee and a few pipes of good tobacco , our party retired ; sleep came with celerity and the camp was peace fully at rest , with the exception of two regular soldiers who stood guard until 12 o'clock , and were then relieved by two others who kept vigil until sunrise. At intervals I awoke during the night and listened to the industrious beavers building dams on the creek. They were shoveling mud witli their trowel-shaped tails into the crevices of their dams with a constantly-resounding slapping and splashing all night. The architecture of the beaver is not unlike that which fol lows him and exalts itself in the chinked and daubed cabins of the pioneers. THE VALLEY OF GAME. The darkness was followed by a dawn of beauty and breakfast came soon thereafter , and for the first time my eyes looked out upon the attractive , fer tile and beautiful valley of the Repub-