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In earlier times one of these routes was known as the "Spanish Trail," from Santa Fe to San Antonio de Bexar, of Texas; and lest travellers should lose their way, several points were marked with "palos," or stakes. Hence the name it has received. The Llano Estacado is now rarely travelled, except by the ciboleros, or Mexican buffalo-hunters, and "Comancheros," or Indian traders.
The men in the camp were, nearly all of them, old-timers in the West: miners from the Comstock lode whose boom was then on the wane, teamsters who had been freighting all over the blazing deserts of the Southwest, investors and merchants from Tucson, buffalo-hunters from western Kansas, Texas, and Colorado, gamblers from Dodge City, El Paso, and Santa Fé, Indian-fighters, cattle-rustlers, professional claim-jumpers, and some gentle-voiced desperadoes of the real breed, equally willing to slay from behind or take a long chance in front, according to the way the play came up.
He reported that he had run into a party of Indian buffalo-hunters, and had killed one of the number, and had had one of his horses wounded. We immediately pushed forward and after marching about five miles came within sight of hundreds of mounted Indians advancing up the creek to meet us. They formed a complete line in front of us.
Others reclined against the wooden fence, their arms crossed, their thin white hair waving gently in the breeze, and a kind smile playing on their sunburned faces, as they observed the swagger and coxcombry of the younger men, or watched the gambols of several dark-eyed little children embryo buffalo-hunters and voyageurs whose mothers had brought them to the fort to get a last kiss from papa, and witness the departure of the boats.
These herds are sometimes so vast as absolutely to blacken the plains for miles around. The half-breed buffalo-hunters of Red River were also gregarious. From the moment of their quitting the settlements they kept together for mutual help and protection.
There was one small boy a half-breed, with piercing black eyes and curly hair, whose powers of mischief were so great that he was almost equal to the lost Tony. He did his mischief quietly, and, as it were, with restrained enthusiasm. For instance, this imp chanced to be passing a group of Canadian buffalo-hunters seated round one of the camp-fires enjoying a can of tea.
Whether a comrade or an Indian had done the deed there was nothing to show; but that a murder had been committed they could not doubt, for it was physically almost impossible that a man could have shot himself in the chest, either by accident or intention, with one of the long-barrelled trading guns in use among the buffalo-hunters.
And whenever they did locate a man with the contraband in his possession, that gentleman was due to have his outfit confiscated and get a chance to ponder the error of his ways in the seclusion of a Mounted Police guardhouse if he didn't make an exceedingly fast getaway. We all took a drink when these buffalo-hunters produced the "red-eye."
The heads of twelve of the Indians were cut off and stuck up on the pickets and posts of the corral; were left there, to dry in the sun, for a hideous warning. But the buffalo-hunters decided to hunt no more, this season. The Pan-handle country was getting "unhealthy!" So much had Chief Quana and his brother chiefs and warriors achieved. They had spoiled the buffalo hunting.
"An' we'll do just that, boss." Long before the traders reached it, the camp of the buffalo-hunters advertised its presence by the stench of decaying animal matter. Hundreds of hides were pegged to the ground. Men and women, squatting on their heels, scraped bits of fat from the drying skins.
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