Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 51448-h.htm or 51448-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51448/51448-h/51448-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51448/51448-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/plainststory00cookrich Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). [Illustration: JOHN R. COOK.] THE BORDER AND THE BUFFALO An Untold Story of the Southwest Plains The Bloody Border of Missouri and Kansas. The Story of the Slaughter of the Buffalo. Westward among the Big Game and Wild Tribes. A Story of Mountain and Plain by JOHN R. COOK Monotyped and Printed By Crane & Company Topeka, Kansas 1907 Copyrighted January, 1907, By John R. Cook. All rights reserved. THE BORDER AND THE BUFFALO BY JOHN R. COOK Especially dedicated to my crippled wife, who patiently assisted and encouraged me to write this book; and to Sol Rees, Mortimer N. Kress ("Wild Bill"); also, that noble band of Buffalo hunters who stood shoulder to shoulder and fought Kiowas, Comanches, and Staked Plains Apaches, during the summer of 1877 on the Llano Estacado, or the Staked Plains of Western Texas and Eastern New Mexico, whose memories will ever pleasantly abide with THE AUTHOR 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.