The males have very large tails, and a great knob or flock at the end, so that in some respects they resemble the lion, and in some others the camel. They push with their horns; they run; they overtake and kill a horse when they are in their rage and anger. The horses fled from them, either because of their deformed shape, or else because they had never before seen them. Finally it is a foul and fierce beast of countenance and form of body.

Coronado and Castaneda, with their band of unquenchable spirits, were the first white people to see the American buffalo.

CHAPTER II

All during Tom Doan’s boyhood, before and through the stirring years of the Rebellion, he had been slowly yielding to the call that had made so many young men adventurers and pioneers in the Southwest.

His home had not been a happy one, but as long as his mother lived and his sisters remained unmarried he had stayed there, getting what education there was available at the little Kansas village school, and working hard on the farm. When Kansas refused to secede to the South at the beginning of the Rebellion, Tom’s father, who was a rebel, joined Quantrill’s notorious band of guerillas. Tom’s sisters were in sympathy with the South. But Tom and his mother held open leaning toward the North. It was a divided family. Eventually the girls married and left home. Tom’s mother did not long survive her husband, who was shot on one of Quantrill’s raids.

Tom outlived the sadness and bitterness of his youth, but they left their mark upon him. His loyalty to his mother had alone kept him from the wildness of the time, and their poverty had made hard work imperative. After the war he drifted from place to place, always farther and farther toward the unsettled country. He had pioneer blood in him, and in his mind he had settled the future. He meant to be a rancher, a tiller of the soil, a stockman and a breeder of horses, for these things he loved. Yet always there was in him the urge to see the frontier, to be in the thick of wild life while he was hunting and exploring for that wonderful land which would content him. Thus Tom Doan had in him a perfect blending of the dual spirit that burned in the hearts of thousands of men, and which eventually opened up the West to civilization.

Not, however, until the autumn of 1874 did he surrender to the call. The summer of that year had been a momentous one in the Southwest. Even in years of stress this one stood out as remarkable, and the tales drifting up from the frontier had thrilled Tom’s heart.

A horde of buffalo-hunters, lured by the wild life and the development of a commercial market for buffalo hides, had braved the Indians in their haunts and started after the last great herds. This had resulted in an Indian war. The Cheyennes, Kiowas, Arapahoes, and the Comanches had gone on the warpath. A thousand warriors of these tribes had made the memorable siege of a small band of buffalo-hunters and their soldier escort, and after repeated and persistent charges had been repulsed. The tale of this battle was singularly thrilling to Tom Doan. Particularly had the hunting of buffalo appealed to him. Not that he had ever hunted a buffalo, for in fact he had never seen one. But stories told him as a boy had fixed themselves in his mind, never to be effaced.

Early spring found Tom Doan arriving at the outfitting post from which an army of buffalo-hunters were preparing to leave for the long haul to the south.

The atmosphere of this frontier fort and freighting station was new to Tom, and affected him deeply. The stir of youthful love of wild tales was here revived. At a step, almost, he had found himself on the threshold of the frontier. Huge freighting wagons, some with six horses attached, and loaded with piles and bales of green buffalo hides, lumbered in from the level prairie land. The wide main street of the town presented a continual procession of men and women, mostly in rough garb of travel, and all intent on the mysterious something that seemed to be in the air. There was a plentiful sprinkling of soldiers, and palefaced, frock-coated gamblers, and many stylishly dressed women who had a too friendly look, Tom thought.