Life and Adventures of 'Billy' Dixon

Ranging between the Arkansas and the Cimarron in the summer of 1873, we worked west as far as the Beaver, in Stanton County, Kansas. We prospered, as buffaloes were plentiful. Our hides were hauled to Granada, on the Colorado line.

Along in the fall we went to Dodge and loaded up with supplies for an expedition even further south. We struck Crooked Creek and finally the Cimarron, ten miles below Wagonbed Springs, where we planned to stay during the winter, and built a dugout. Buffaloes were everywhere, but like the leaves of the winter forest – disappearing never to return.

While in camp at this place we saw a spectacular sight. A big war party of Cheyennes passed on their way to fight the Utes. The latter lived in Colorado. The Cheyennes were out for blood. Their horses were in fine shape, and each warrior was fully equipped with weapons. We learned that the Utes had long been in the habit of coming down to the buffalo country every fall to kill their winter's supply of meat. The Cheyennes, proud and arrogant, were opposed to this invasion of their hunting grounds by the mountain Indians and had decided to make an end of it if possible. Much has been written about the desperate warfare and the bloody battles between Indians and white men. I am rather of the opinion that war between Indian tribes was even worse. They fought to exterminate each other if possible.

This expedition of Cheyennes was divided into many small parties – three or four warriors traveling together. We had heard of their attacking other buffalo hunters, and running off their stock. We kept both eyes open, day and night. Frequently, these Indians would stop at our camp, to which we offered no objection if there were only a few in the party, but if fifteen or twenty came in sight, heading toward our camp, we signalled for them to pass around without stopping. We did not dare run the risk of letting a superior force of Indians get at close quarters under the guise of friendship, as soon every hunter's scalp would have been dangling on the Cheyenne bridles. Occasionally, upon approaching, the Cheyennes would lay down their guns, and advance unarmed, to show that they did not intend to offer us injury. We always fed them well.

About fifteen warriors came into camp one day, and were soon greatly interested in a pair of field glasses that I used in looking over the country for landmarks, buffaloes and Indians. After letting our visitors look through them, I laid the glasses on a pile of bedding and thought no more about them. After the Indians had ridden away, I reached for the glasses to look over a bunch of Indians that had assembled on a hill a mile or so distant. The glasses had disappeared.

I was fighting mad, and determined to get my glasses or kill an Indian or two. Seizing my buffalo gun and mounting my best horse, I started in pursuit of the thieves. The rascals suspected my purpose, and long before I got within shooting range they scattered like quail and hid themselves. The country was rough and broken and I found it decidedly too dangerous to attempt to hunt them out.

In approaching our camp, it had been the practice of the Cheyennes to come with their horses running at headlong speed, possibly to "throw a scare" into the white men. We at once set our heads against this sort of thing, and soon convinced the Indians that we would fire into them if the practice were repeated.

All these Cheyennes were rigged out in full war style. Each had a led horse, his war horse, which was the Indian's pride, and which he loved above his other possessions. He gave his war horse the best of care, and kept him expressly for battle.

The detachments of this big Cheyenne war party were about three days passing our camp, and during that time we remained close at home. One of us constantly stood guard on a high point close by. There was smell of Indian in the air. Our horses were picketed during the day, and at night we tied them to the wagons. There were only four of us, and we could not afford to make the slightest mistake.

After the country was clear of Indians, we made a trip over on Sharpe's Creek, but found no buffaloes – the passing of the Indians had scared the buffaloes out of their wits. If the buffaloes would not come to us, we would go to the buffaloes, so we shifted camp from the Cimarron down to the Beaver, in "No Man's Land."

Making short drives each day, to spy out the country, we got as far west as the present town of Guymon, Okla., where we camped several days to clean up several scattering bunches of buffaloes, all bulls. These old bulls were easily killed, and their hides brought the best prices.

Here we met some of the same Cheyennes that had passed our camp on the Cimarron. They were on their way back home to Indian Territory. They recognized us. I had acquired some knowledge of the Cheyenne language, and questioned them about their trip to the Ute country. It was funny to hear them tell how they had "run the Utes clean over the mountains." They claimed they had killed stacks and stacks of Utes, going through the motions of how the Utes ran in getting away from the Cheyennes.

After making a kill of buffaloes, the hides were always left on the ground to dry, before hauling them to market. We had left a big lot of hides and provisions at our Cimarron camp. The passing of the Indians on their way back home made us feel that it might be well to see what the situation was in our old camp. We expected to find all our hides gone and our provisions stolen; to our great surprise we found everything just as we had left it. The plains Indians were highly suspicious, and it is possible that they feared the provisions might be poisoned.

The thinning out of the buffaloes made hunting laborious. Riding out early one morning, I managed to kill about thirty during the day's hunt, all of them cows. It was a strange fact that buffalo cows and bulls ranged together only during the breeding season; at other times they went in separate bunches.

Next morning we went out to do our skinning. Having run short of meat, I had drawn several of the carcasses, and was so busily engaged that I did not notice what was going on around me.

The day was warm, with the wind in the south. Then the wind died until there was perfect calm for about fifteen minutes. Suddenly, our attention was drawn to the unusual appearance of the sandhills to the north of us, along the river. We could see a fog of dust and sand, which struck us in a shorter time than it takes to tell it. We were caught in the jaws of a norther, the terror of the Plainsman. All animals seem to know instinctively when a norther is coming, and grow nervous and restless.

It is difficult to see or to breathe when a norther is at its height, and unless good shelter is near at hand there is danger of quickly freezing to death. We were wise enough to know that the best thing for us to do would be to get back to camp as quickly as possible. Tossing our meat into the wagon, we jumped in and headed for camp with our mules at a gallop. On my horse I rode beside the mules, urging them along with my quirt. Despite our instant flight and our speed, we were nearly frozen when we arrived at camp.

These winter storms usually exhausted themselves at the end of two or three days, but while they are raging it is impossible to leave camp with safety.

After we had thawed out, we decided to tackle the Beaver country again, and went up that stream to a place then known as Company M, where we struck off in a southwesterly direction and came to the Coldwater, which further toward its source is known as the Al Frio, which means "cold water," and undoubtedly was named by the Mexicans who used to hunt in that region. The favorite weapon of these Mexicans was the lance, which necessarily brought them at close quarters with the buffaloes, and required swift horses.

The Coldwater takes its rise from a number of springs which form a series of remarkable pools of water. At this place afterwards was built one of the headquarters of the old XIT Ranch outfit. The buildings stand today as they did in earlier years, but the phase of life that dwelt there has vanished forever. When the XIT established itself in the Texas Panhandle, the cowboy was typical, genuine and picturesque. He was the cock of the walk, who could eat centipedes for breakfast and barbed wire for supper without injuring his digestion, and dance all night and ride all day without missing a step. His like will never be seen again. He had a rough hide and a tender heart, and an ear that was inclined to every hard luck story that passed his way.

Buffalo Springs stands in the open Plains south of the Beaver and just south of the line that divides the Texas Panhandle from Cimarron County, Oklahoma. Here is a considerable growth of timber, consisting of cottonwoods, elms and willows. The traveler will go many, many weary miles south before he again sees a clump of timber or finds living water.

The beginning of the Al Frio is a spring near a lone cottonwood tree about a mile west of the ranch house. The water rises in a fissure in the rock. Some rather fabulous stories have been told about its depth. Now follow a chain of deep pools of dark and steely clearness, chillingly cold even in hottest midsummer, with steep, precipitous banks, along which waves a dense and almost impenetrable growth of reeds and tall, wiry grass. Here abound bass in such size and numbers as to tempt the most expert angler.

Buffalo Springs is a veritable garden in the dry and dusty Plains, an oasis in the desert. Countless birds not found elsewhere on the Plains assemble here in summer, beautifying with song and bright plumage all the green, cool places. Flowers of exquisite fragrance and great brilliancy of color are found. There are many varieties. In fall and spring, migratory water-fowl descend to disport themselves in the pools.

The ranch house, which still remains in excellent condition, was such a house as appealed to a man seeking shelter from winter storms or summer heat. Its original walls of adobe were boxed and plastered, giving them a thickness of nearly two feet. On its dirt floors jangled many a spur. At the kitchen door hangs the triangle gong with which the cook called the "woollies" to meals. Struck with its heavy bar of iron, this old gong booms and rumbles until it can be heard far out on the Plains. Each of its sides measured more than two feet.

When this region was wild and uninhabited, these springs were frequented by buffaloes in enormous numbers, crowding and fighting their way to water. In the neighborhood of the pools were treacherous bogs which at this day are a menace to live stock. In the old days buffaloes must have mired there by hundreds.

Here the Indians encountered this noble game to their liking. A mile or two east of the springs, there is a slight swell in the Plains where the Comanches are said to have maintained their hunting camp when in that vicinity. From this camp the Plains could be surveyed for miles in every direction. Mounting their horses, the Indian hunters descended like thunderbolts upon the buffaloes massed at the springs, and slaughtered them at will. The hides were pegged down and dried in camp and the meat hung on poles and cured in the dry, pure air for winter use. A kill could be made as often as the red hunters wished to rush to the attack.

This account of the history of Buffalo Springs has been given by Mr. John Skelley, one of the rugged and reliable pioneers of Cimarron county; he lives at the postoffice of Wheeless:

"I was at Buffalo Springs as early as 1878, when I was a boy 14 years old. At that time there were no buildings. There had been some adobes made, either by Bill Hall, of Kansas City, or Dan Taylor of Trinidad, or both, in order to build a house to shelter their winter line-riders, as a line-camp was kept at the Springs every winter. My father was a freighter at Trinidad, where I was raised, and he hauled the lumber down to Buffalo Springs from Trinidad, to cover and floor the house. I made the trip with him. This was in 1878.

"The house was never built, as the fall and winter of '78 were so cold and severe that the line-riders burned all the lumber for wood. The nearest timber was on the Currumpaw or Beaver, about eight or ten miles northwest of the Springs, where there are still a few stunted cedars and a growth of cottonwoods.

"In 1884 the Capitol Freehold Land & Cattle Syndicate established a ranch at Buffalo Springs. This company is the one that built the capitol at Austin, Texas, for which it was paid in millions of acres of land. This ranch was stocked with cattle. I worked for the man who had the fence contract. We finished the contract in December, 1885.

"During that year the owners had put in about 20,000 head of cattle, brought from the south. Better grass could not be found anywhere. A few mustangs and buffaloes were still left in the country, but disappeared from that vicinity in 1887. Stragglers could be found around Company M water as late as 1889. This water was six or eight miles southeast of the present town of Boise City, the county seat of Cimarron county, Oklahoma.

"In the fall of 1885 a big prairie fire broke out and swept the country bare from the Beaver south almost to the South Canadian. We fought it with all our strength, but there were not men enough in the country to get it under control. This misfortune was followed by an early and severe winter. The company at Buffalo Springs drifted its herds out to the Canadian and to the south Plains, yet despite every precaution the loss was tremendous. I was told that only 7,000 head of the 20,000 were gathered the following spring.

"The company did not jump the game, but went ahead next year. Old man Boise, who was killed by Sneed, was general manager of the company for a good many years, and built up a fine ranch. A man named Campbell was the first manager at Buffalo Springs, followed by an Englishman named Maud. After these came Boise, who took the outfit about 1890.

"The timber that is growing at Buffalo Springs was planted by the company, and is not a natural growth. I know of no natural timber south of there until the Canadian is reached, though the company has set out several tracts in timber, and there is now lots of water in wells on their holdings between Buffalo Springs and the Canadian.

"In the old days when we left Buffalo Springs and traveled southeast we found no live water until we got to the head of the Rio Blanco, about fifty miles distant, and ten or twelve miles southeast of the present town of Delhart. There was and still is water at what we used to call the Perico water-holes, some 10 or 12 miles south of the Ranch, but this water has neither source nor outlet, as it rises and then sinks again, the Perico gradually vanishing in the Plains.

"The Springs was a great hunting ground for buffaloes. In the fall of 1878 the valley was alive with buffaloes and mustangs, and when I was there in that year I saw several hunters' camps. A long time ago I talked to old Mexicans who told me that they hunted buffaloes at the Springs when they were boys. They said that expeditions of both Mexicans and Navajoes came from the settlements on the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, to procure their winter's meat.

"There was an old trail leading to the Springs from New Mexico, thence to Agua Frio, and on down through the country to the eastward. We used to call this the 'old buffalo trail.' I have not seen it in more than twenty-five years, but am told that it has become so overgrown with grass that it has almost disappeared. When I was there as a boy there were thousands of antelope on the Plains; now most of them are gone. The Fort Worth & Denver City railroad company began running its trains through the company's big estate in the spring of 1888, which hastened the disappearance of the game."

We camped over night at Buffalo Springs, and next day followed the Al Frio or Coldwater, which is a dry stream with occasional water holes. After proceeding about thirty miles, we saw that the stream was bearing too far to the north, so we turned south and struck the brakes of the Big Blue, a tributary of the South Canadian. This was a new country to all of us, and as strange to us as if we were its first visitors. We came to a pool that was alive with all kinds of fish, and in all directions deer and wild turkeys seemed as thick as grasshoppers. With a whoop, everybody voted unanimously to go into camp at this place.

As a fisherman I never had any luck. Leaving this sport to the rest of the outfit, I mounted my horse, and set out to explore the surrounding country. In roaming around, I reached an abandoned Mexican camp on one of the prongs of the Blue. It had been untenanted for years. I was told by older hunters that the Mexicans used to come here every fall to kill buffaloes, bringing pack trains. They remained until they got a winter's supply of meat, drying the meat and rendering the tallow.

I rejoined the outfit and we kept moving until we reached the South Canadian, crossing this stream at a point near where the LX Ranch was afterwards located. Further south, we struck Palo Duro Canyon below the waterfalls. This was a dry stream, and we were compelled to rely upon melted snow for ourselves and stock. We crossed Mulberry Creek at its head waters, and camped there several days.

After crossing the Canadian, we began seeing signs of Mexican hunters, the spots where they had camped the preceding fall being plainly visible. Shifting our course more to the northeast, we crossed the head tributaries of Salt Fork and North Fork of Red River, coming back to the Canadian about twenty miles above where Canadian City, Texas, now stands.

During all this wandering we had not seen a white man, nor a human being of any kind – only a vast wilderness, inhabited by game – truly the hunter's paradise. When we saw Red River we thought that it certainly must be the South Canadian, being misled by the fact that both were sandy streams and both dry at that time. We could see a difference between the two, however, when we got to the Canadian.

CHAPTER VI

Hugging the south side of the Canadian, we followed an old trail, called the Fort Smith and Fort Bascom trail, up to White Deer Creek, a beautiful, clear-running stream, fringed abundantly with timber. Right opposite the mouth of this stream, on the north side of the Canadian, are the old ruins of the original Adobe Walls, though at the time we were ignorant of this fact, and passed without halting at this historic place.

Crossing to the north side of the Canadian, we reached Moore's Creek, and were delighted to find that all along the Canadian, every four or five miles, were running streams of fine water. All the streams were timbered, some more heavily than others, and in the branches of the tall cottonwoods wild turkeys roosted by thousands, while deer and antelopes in great herds grazed in the grassy bottoms.

On Bugbee Creek we passed a camp where a white man named Wheeler had been killed that fall (1873) by Indians. The brush along the creeks was alive with quail, and we could see signs of fur animals, such as beaver, mink and otter. I was now going over ground that I should see again, but little did I dream of what the future would be.

We left the river at Moore's Creek, and went north until we struck the Palo Duro again, below where we had crossed it on our way down. Here we found quite a number of buffalo hunters camped for the winter.

Our object in making this trip was to locate a good buffalo range for the following summer. Our reason for going at this time of year was that there would be less danger of being molested by Indians, as the latter did not travel in winter, if they could avoid it, preferring the idleness and pleasure of a warm winter camp, well supplied with buffalo meat. Occasionally, however, a party of young bucks, thirsty for glory in taking scalps, would brave the cold weather and make a raid. After lying around camp with the boys on the Palo Duro for several days, we headed for our old camp on the Cimarron, where we found ourselves short of supplies, and continued on to Dodge City.

In making this big circle to Buffalo Springs, Red River, the ruins of Adobe Walls and back to Dodge City, we saw very few buffaloes; only now and then would we run across a bunch of old bulls. However, there were signs everywhere showing where thousands had been herding together, and we felt certain that they would come back to their old range in the spring.

It was sometime in February, 1874, when we got back to Dodge. We had seen enough to satisfy us that the thing to do would be to go down on the Canadian as soon as the weather settled. While waiting, we went out northwest of Dodge on my old hunting grounds. This was the last hunting I ever did north of the Arkansas. My face was set toward the forbidden country, where the Indians were looking for the scalps of white men.