drink on a Kansas prairie, and a buffalo hunter
was a good man to get away with it.

While taking a short rest, we suddenly spied another herd of buffaloes
coming toward us. It was only a small drove, and we at once prepared to
give the animals a lively reception. They proved to be a herd of cows and
calves--which, by the way, are quicker in their movements than the bulls.
We charged in among them, and I concluded my run with a score of
eighteen, while Comstock killed fourteen. The score now stood fifty-six
to thirty-seven, in my favor.

Again the excursion party approached, and once more the champagne was
tapped. After we had eaten a lunch which was spread for us, we resumed
the hunt. Striking out for a distance of three miles, we came up close to
another herd. As I was so far ahead of my competitor in the number
killed, I thought I could afford to give an extra exhibition of my skill.
I had told the ladies that I would, on the next run, ride my horse
without saddle or bridle. This had raised the excitement to fever heat
among the excursionists, and I remember one fair lady who endeavored to
prevail upon me not to attempt it.

"That's nothing at all," said I; "I have done it many a time, and old
Brigham knows as well as I what I am doing, and sometimes a great
deal better."

So, leaving my saddle and bridle with the wagons, we rode to the windward
of the buffaloes, as usual, and when within a few hundred yards of them
we dashed into the herd. I soon had thirteen laid out on the ground, the
last one of which I had driven down close to the wagons, where the ladies
were. It frightened some of the tender creatures to see the buffalo
coming at full speed directly toward them; but when he had got within
fifty yards of one of the wagons, I shot him dead in his tracks. This
made my sixty-ninth buffalo, and finished my third and last run, Comstock
having killed forty-six.

As it was now late in the afternoon, Comstock and his backers gave up
the idea that he could beat me, and thereupon the referees declared me
the winner of the match, as well as the champion buffalo-hunter of the
plains.[A]

[Footnote A: Poor Billy Comstock was afterwards treacherously murdered by
the Indians. He and Sharpe Grover visited a village of Indians, supposed
to be peaceably inclined, near Big Spring Station, in Western Kansas; and
after spending several hours with the redskins in friendly conversation,
they prepared to depart, having declined