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OUT ON THE PLAINS—BUFFALO STAMPEDE.

The buffalo trails generally followed the water courses or paralleled them, while again they would lead across the country with scarcely any deviation from a direct course. When on the road a herd would persistently follow their leader, whether in the wild tumult of a stampede or the more leisurely grazing as they traveled.

However, for nearly a thousand miles a goodly supply of fresh meat was obtainable from the adventurous hunters, who in spite of the appalling calamity that had overtaken the moving column of the emigrants would venture out on the chase, the temptation being too great to restrain their ardor.

A story is told, and it is doubtless true, of a chase on the upper regions of the Missouri, where the leaders, either voluntarily or by pressure from the mass behind, leaped to their death over a perpendicular bluff a hundred feet high overlooking the river, followed blindly by the herd until not only hundreds but thousands lay at the foot struggling in inextricable confusion, piling one upon another till the space between the river and the bluff was bridged and the belated victims plunged headlong into the river.

Well up the Platte but below Fort Laramie, we had the experience of a night stampede that struck terror to the very vitals of man and beast. It so happened that evening we had brought our cattle into camp, a thing we did not usually do. We had driven the wagons into a circle with the tongue of one wagon chained to the hind axle tree of the one in front, with the cattle inside the circle and the tents outside. I slept in the wagon that night, which was not often, for usually I would be out on the range with the oxen, and if I slept at all, snugged up close to Dandy's back. My partner, William Buck, was in the tent nearby and sleeping on the ground, likewise brother Oliver.

We first heard the approaching storm, but almost instantly every animal in the corral was on his feet. Just then the alarm was given and all hands turned out, not yet knowing what caused the general commotion. A roar like an approaching storm could be heard in the distance. We can liken it to the roar of a heavy railroad train on a still night passing at no great distance. As by instinct all suddenly seemed to know what was approaching, the tents were emptied of their inmates, the weak parts of the corral guarded, the frightened cattle looked after, and everyone in the camp was on the alert to watch what was coming.

In the darkness of the night we could soon see the form of the foremost leader and then such dense masses that one could not distinguish one from the other. How long they were passing we forgot to note; it seemed like an age. When daylight came a few stragglers were yet to be seen and fell under the unerring aim of the frontier-man's rifle. Our neighbors in camp did not escape loss. Some were detained for days gathering up their scattered stock, while again others were unable to find them, and lost their teams, or a part of them, and never did recover them.

At times when not on the road, the buffalo were shy, difficult to approach and hard to bag, even with the long range rifles of the pioneers.