The Wolf Hunters: A Story of the Buffalo PlainsPeck, Robert Morris
General
The Wolf Hunters: A Story of the Buffalo Plains
Peck, Robert Morris
Frontier and pioneer life -- Kansas; Hunting -- Kansas
After unloading our stuff from the wagon, we sent the team back to the
garrison and then set about pitching our tent and making ourselves
comfortable, for we expected to have to remain here several days,
partly on Tom's account and partly to wait for Kitchen's train, which
was coming in from New Mexico, by which we expected to ship our
wolfskins to Leavenworth, provided we did not sell them here.
After getting everything in shape, leaving Jack to mind camp and cook
dinner, Bill and I returned to the post to call on Tom at the hospital,
to release Found, who was still locked in Bill's room, and to bring our
mule team back to camp.
We found the old man still badly crippled from the wound in his thigh,
but the doctor thought he would be able to travel in a few days.
The faithful dog was glad to see us and to be released. He was quite
hungry, for he had had nothing to eat since the feed I gave him in the
dugout before starting him with the message to Bill.
As I was hitching up our mule team at Saunders' company stable, the
captain came by and insisted on my going with him to the commissary and
loading in some rations and feed which he had procured a requisition
for, to replace the supplies that his men and horses had consumed at
Camp Coyotelope.
The work of settling up our business affairs and getting everything
ready for the return trip now devolved upon me, though I had the
benefit of consultation with Tom on all matters of importance.
As already stated, our winter's catch of wolfskins numbered something
over three thousand. These were all dried and baled in one of
Weisselbaum's warerooms. About one fourth of these pelts were of the
large gray wolves, or "lobos," as the Mexicans call them, which, at
that time, were rated on the plains at one dollar and twenty-five cents
each. The other three fourths were coyotes, worth seventy-five cents
each. Besides these, there were several bales of the skins of the
little yellow fox, worth twenty-five cents each. At these figures, the
entire lot should bring us something over twenty-six hundred dollars.
On Tom's advice I offered the whole to Weisselbaum for twenty-five
hundred, but he seemed to think he could get them for less and held off.
One day when negotiations had reached this stage, Kitchen's mule train
rolled in and camped near us. This brought business to a focus with
Weisselbaum and he immediately hurried down to our camp, accepted my
offer, and wrote me out a check on Clark & Gruber[E] (M. E. Clark &
E. H. Gruber), bankers of Leavenworth city, for twenty-five hundred
dollars. In addition to this, I drew from his safe the three hundred
and fifty dollars that we had deposited with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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