"My first buffalo hunt was in 1867. The country seemed to be covered with great herds and the Indians were hunting them. Twenty of us started out with five wagons. There were Jake and Boss Gilmore, Jim Johnson, and myself in one wagon. We had only about three days' supplies with us, expecting to get buffalo before these were exhausted, but the Indians were ahead of us and kept the buffalo out of our range. Our party crossed the Little Blue at Deweese. Beyond there we found carcasses of buffalo and a fire where the Indians had burned out a ranch. Realizing that it was necessary for us to take precautions, we chose Colonel Bifkin our leader and decided to strike another trail and thus avoid the Indians if possible. We traveled toward the Republican river but found no track of either buffalo or Indians, so we turned around and followed the Indians. By that time our food supply was exhausted, but by good luck we shot two wild turkeys. "We were soon following the Indians so closely that we ate dinner where they ate breakfast and by night we were almost in sight of them. We thought it best to put out a guard at night. My station was under a cottonwood tree near a foot-log that crossed a branch of the Little Blue. I was to be relieved at eleven o'clock. I heard something coming on the foot-log. I listened and watched but it was so dark that I could see nothing, but could hear it coming closer; so I shot and heard something drop. Colonel Bifkin, who was near, coming to relieve me, asked what I was shooting at. 'I don't know, perhaps an Indian; it dropped,' I replied. We looked and found merely a coon, but it did good service as wagon grease, for we had forgotten that very necessary article.