f meat had been
procured. The hunters skinned and cut up the five buffaloes; the waggons
were placed some fifteen yards apart, and several cords stretched
tightly between them; upon these was hung the flesh, which was cut in
strips some four inches wide and half an inch thick. By the end of the
third day the whole of the meat was dried by the united action of the
sun and wind. The skins had been pegged out in the sun, and some of the
boys, under Abe's instructions, roughly cured them, first scraping them
inside, and then rubbing them with fat mixed with salt.

"It's a rough way," Abe said, "and the Injin women would laugh to see
it; they just rub and rub at them till they get them as soft and pliable
as the leather they make gloves of East. Still, they will keep as they
are, and will do to chuck in the bottom of the waggons for the women and
children to sit upon; besides, we shall find it cold at night as we get
on, and a buffalo-robe ain't to be despised,--even if it ain't dressed
to perfection. When they dry and get stiff the boys can take another rub
at 'em when we halts; it will give them something to do, and keep them
out of mischief."

"Talking of buffalo," Abe began, as the hunters were sitting round the
fire on the evening of the hunt, "that reminds me that it wasn't so very
far from this har spot that me and Rube was nearly wiped out by the Utes
some ten years ago. Rube, he was a young chap then, and had not been
long out on the plains. We war hunting with a party of Cheyennes, and
had been with them well-nigh all the summer. One day we war in pursuit
of buffalo--they were plentiful then; you think they are plentiful now,
but you would see ten herds then for every one you see now. But they are
going, and I expect in another twenty years that a man might ride across
the plains and never catch sight of a hump. If the gold turns out to be
as rich as they say, there will be hundreds of thousands of people cross
these plains, and, like enough, settlements be formed right across the
continent. However, there war plenty of herds ten years ago.

"We had come upon a big herd, and was chasing them. I had singled out an
old bull, and had pushed right into the herd after him; Rube, he was
pretty close to me. Well, I came up to the bull, and put a rifle-ball
between his ribs. The herd had rather separated as we got amongst them,
making way for us right and left as we rode after the bull. As he fell we
reined in our horses