At daylight I unsaddled my mount and made a hearty breakfast of bacon and hardtack.  Then I lighted my pipe, and, making a pillow of my saddle, lay down to rest.

The smoke and the fatigue of the night’s journey soon made me drowsy, and before I knew it I was fast asleep.  Suddenly I was awakened by a loud rumbling noise.  I seized my gun instantly, and sprang toward my horse, which I had picketed in a hidden spot in the brush near by where he would be out of sight of any passing Indians.

Climbing a steep hill, I looked cautiously over the country from which the noise appeared to come.  There before me was a great herd of buffalo, moving at full gallop.  Twenty Indians were behind it, riding hard and firing into the herd as they rode.  Others near by were cutting up the carcasses of the animals that had already been killed.

I saddled my horse and tied him near me.  Then I crawled on my stomach to the summit of the hill, and for two hours I lay there watching the progress of the chase.

When the Indians had killed all the buffalo they wanted they rode off in the direction whence they had come.  This happened to be the way that I hoped to go on my own expedition.  I made up my mind that their camp was located somewhere between me and Glendive Creek.  I was not at all eager to have any communication with these gentlemen.  Therefore, when I resumed my journey at nightfall, I made a wide detour around the place where I believed their camp would be.  I avoided it successfully, reaching Colonel Rice’s camp just after daybreak.

The colonel had been fighting Indians almost every day since he encamped at this point.  He was anxious that Terry should know of this so that reenforcements might be sent, and the country cleared of the redskins.  Of course it fell to my lot to carry this word back to Terry.

I undertook the mission willingly enough, for by this time I was pretty well used to night riding through a country beset with perils, and rather enjoyed it.

The strain of my recent rides had told on me, but the excitement bore me up.  Indeed, when a man is engaged in work of this kind, the exhilaration is such that he forgets all about the wear and tear on his system, and not until all danger is over and he is safely resting in camp does he begin to feel what he has been through.  Then a good long sleep usually puts him all right again.

Many and many a time I have driven myself beyond what I believed was the point of physical endurance, only to find that I was ready for still further effort if the need should arise.  The fact that I continued in rugged health during all the time I was on the Plains, and have had little illness throughout my life, seems to prove that living and working outdoors, despite its hardships, is far better for a man than any sedentary occupation can possibly be.