ve orders to double-shot his guns,
they being nothing but little brass howitzers, and he
counted, "One, two, three, four," until one of his own
carriages capsized and fell down into the gulch; from which
place Captain Samuel Robbins and his company, K, extricated
it and saved it from falling into the enemy's hands.

Having been compelled to give ground all day, Colonel Slough,
between five and six o'clock in the afternoon, issued
orders to retreat. About the same time General Sibley
received information from the rear of the destruction of
his supply trains, and ordered a flag of truce to be sent
to Colonel Slough, which did not reach him, however, until
he arrived at Kosloskie's. A truce was entered into until
nine o'clock the next morning, which was afterward extended
to twenty-four hours, and under which Sibley with his
demoralized forces fell back to Santa Fe, laying that town
under tribute to supply his forces.

The 29th was spent in burying the dead, as well as those
of the Confederates which they left on the field, and
caring for the wounded. Orders were received from General
Canby directing Colonel Slough to fall back to Fort Union,
which so incensed him that while obeying the order he
forwarded his resignation, and soon after left the command.

Thus ended the battle of La Glorieta.

CHAPTER XII.[41] THE BUFFALO.

The ancient range of the buffalo, according to history and tradition,
once extended from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, embracing
all that magnificent portion of North America known as the Mississippi
valley; from the frozen lakes above to the "Tierras Calientes" of
Mexico, far to the south.

It seems impossible, especially to those who have seen them, as
numerous, apparently, as the sands of the seashore, feeding on the
illimitable natural pastures of the great plains, that the buffalo
should have become almost extinct.

When I look back only twenty-five years, and recall the fact that they
roamed in immense numbers even then, as far east as Fort Harker, in
Central Kansas, a little more than two hundred miles from the Missouri
River, I ask myself, "Have they all disappeared?"

An idea may be formed of how many buffalo were killed from 1868 to
1881, a peri