The summer I was twelve years old, our village went on a buffalo hunt, for scouts had brought in word that herds had been sighted a hundred miles west of the Missouri. My father, Son-of-a-Star, was chosen leader of the hunt.

My tribe no longer used travois, for the government had issued wagons to us. These we took apart, loading the wheels into bull boats while the beds were floated over the river. We made our first camp at the edge of the foot hills, on the other side of the river.

The next morning, we struck tents, loaded them into our wagons, and began the march.

My father led, carrying his medicine bundle at his saddle head; behind him rode two or three elder Indians, leaders of the tribe, also on horseback. Then followed the wagons in a long line; and on either side rode the young men, on their tough, scrubby, little ponies.

Some of our young men as they rode, drove small companies of horses. Neighbors commonly put their horses together, and a young man, or two or three young men, acted as herders. Sometimes a girl, mounted astraddle like a man, drove them.

Now and then a youth might be seen reining in his pony to let the line of wagons pass, while he kept a sharp watch for his sweetheart. She hardly glanced at him as she rode by, for it was not proper for a young man’s sweetheart to let him talk to her in the marching line. The time for courtship was in camp, in the evening.

Toward five or six in the afternoon, we made camp. The wagons were drawn up in a big circle, and the women pitched the tents, while the men unhitched and hobbled their horses, and brought firewood. The women brought water and lighted the fires.

Water was carried in pails. I have heard that in old times, they used clay pots made of a kind of red clay, and burned; a thong went around the neck of the pot, for a handle.

My mother, an active woman, often had her fire started before her neighbors. While she got supper, my father sat and smoked. Friends frequently joined him, and they would sit in a circle, passing the pipe around, telling funny stories and laughing. My father was a capital story teller.

For supper we had deer or antelope meat, boiled or roasted, and my mother often fried wheat-flour dough into a kind of biscuits that were rather hard. Corn picked green the year before, and boiled and dried, was stewed in a kettle, making a dish much like the canned com we buy at the store. More often we had succotash, hominy boiled with fat and beans. We drank black coffee, sweetened; my mother put the coffee beans into a skin, pounded them fine with an ax, and boiled them in an iron pot. You see, we were getting civilized.

When supper was ready, my mother would call “Mi-ha-dits—I have done!” and my father would put up his pipe and come to eat. My mother gave him meat, steaming hot, in a tin dish, and poured coffee into a cup; another cup held meat broth, which made a good drink also. We did not bring wooden feast bowls with us, as some families did.

My mother and I ate with my father, much as white families do; a robe or blanket was spread for each to sit upon.

I wore moccasins and leggings; and my hair was braided, Indian fashion, in two tails over my shoulders, but my mother had made me a white man’s vest, of black cloth, embroidered all over with elk teeth. I was proud of this vest, and cared not a whit that I had no coat to wear over it.

The seventh day out, we made camp near the Cannon Ball River. My father had sent two mounted scouts ahead, with a spy glass, to see if they could find the herds; at evening, they returned with the report, “There is a big herd yonder!” Everybody got ready for the hunt the next morning, and my father made me happy by telling me that I might go along.

We arose early. My father saddled two ponies, one of them a pack animal; and I mounted a third, with a white man’s saddle. My father’s were pack saddles, of elk horn, covered with raw hide; ropes, looped up like a figure 8, were tied behind them to be used in binding the packs of meat we would bring home from the hunt.

There were about forty hunters in our party, mounted, and leading each a pack horse; eight boys, of twelve or fifteen years of age, and three old men. I remember one of the old men carried a bow and arrows, probably from old custom. Only the hunters expected to take part in the actual chase of the buffaloes; they were armed with rifles.

The party’s leader, E-di-a-ka-ta—the same who led our tribe to the Yellowstone—rode ahead, and we followed at a brisk trot. Five miles out of camp, the two scouts were again sent ahead with the spy glass. We saw them coming back at a gallop and knew that the herd was found, and we urged our horses at the top of their speed. I remember the slap of the quirts on the little ponies’ flanks; and the beat-beat, beat-beat! of their hoofs on the hard ground. Indians do not shoe their horses.

We drew rein behind a hill, a half mile to leeward of the herd, and, having dismounted, hobbled our led horses. Our hunters laid aside their shirts and leggings, stripped the saddles from their ponies’ backs, and twisted bridles of thong into their ponies’ mouths; it was our tribe’s custom to ride bare-back in the hunt.

E-di-a-ka-ta went a little way off and stood, facing in the direction of the herd; from a piece of red cloth he tore a long strip, ripped this again into three or four pieces and laid them on the ground. I saw his lips move, and knew he was praying, but I could not hear his words. The pieces of red cloth Were an offering to the spirits of the buffaloes.

Our hunters remounted and drew up in a line facing the herd, E-di-a-ka-ta on the right, and at a signal, the line started forward, neck-and-neck, at a brisk gallop. A guard, named Tsa-wa, or Bear’s Chief, rode in advance; if a hunter pressed too far forward in the line, Tsa-wa struck the hunter’s pony in the face with his quirt.

We boys and the three old men rode a little behind the line of hunters; we did not expect to take part in the hunt, but wanted to see the kill.

As we cleared the brow of the hill we sighted the buffaloes, about four hundred yards away, and E-di-a-ka-ta gave the signal, “Ku’kats—Now then!” Down came the quirts on the little ponies’ flanks, making them leap forward like big cats. The line broke at once, each hunter striving to reach the herd first and kill the fattest. An iron-gray horse, I remember, was in the lead.

We boys followed at breakneck speed—unwillingly on my part; my pony had taken the bit in his mouth and was going over the stony ground at a speed that I feared would throw him any moment and break his neck and mine. I tugged at the reins and clung to the saddle, too scared to cry out.

Bang! A fat cow tumbled over. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The frightened herd started to flee, swerved to the right, and went thundering away up wind, in a whirl of dust. Buffaloes, when alarmed, fly up wind if the way is open; their sight is poor, but they have a keen scent, and running up wind they can nose an Indian a half mile away.

For such heavy beasts, buffaloes have amazing speed, and only our fastest horses were used in hunting them; indeed, a young bull often outran our fastest ponies.

Only cows were killed. The flesh of bulls is tough and was not often eaten; that of calves crumbled when dried, making it unfit for storing.

Some buffalo calves, forsaken by the herd, were running wildly over the prairie, bleating for their mothers; two of our hunters caught one of the smallest with a lariat, and brought it to me. “Here, boy,” they said, “keep this calf.”

I caught the rope and drew the calf after me; but my pony, growing frightened, reared and kicked the little animal; paying out more rope, I led the calf at a safer distance from my horse’s heels.

The hunters came straggling back, and my father seeing the calf, cried out, “Let that calf go! Buffaloes are sacred animals. You should not try to keep one captive!“ I was much disappointed, for I wanted to take it into camp.

My father had killed three fat cows, and these he now sought out and dressed. The shoulders, hams, and choicer cuts he loaded on our led horse, covering the pack with a green hide and tying it down with the rawhide ropes brought for the purpose; the rest he left in a pile on the prairie, covered with the other two hides. We intended to return for these with wagons, the next day.

As my father was cutting up one of the carcasses, I saw him throw away what I thought were good cuts; I did not like to see good meat wasted, and when I thought he was not looking, I slyly put the pieces back on the pile.

We returned to camp slowly, at times urging our ponies to a gentle trot, more often letting them walk. My father had to dismount several times to secure our pack of meat, which threatened to slip from our pack horse’s back. In our tent that evening, I heard him telling my mother of my part in the hunt. “Our son,” he said, “is no wasteful lad. He put back some tough leg pieces that I had thrown away. He would not see good meat wasted!” And they both laughed.

Stages were built in the camp, and for two days, every body was busy drying meat or boiling bones for marrow fat. The dried meat was packed in skin bags, or made into bundles; the marrow fat was run into bladders; and all was taken to Like-a-fish-hook village, to be stored for winter.