Chapter I: 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.