“Do you expect to catch any buffaloes on that Gothic steed!” asked the captain, with a laugh.

“I hope so.”

“You’ll never catch them in the world, my fine fellow.  It requires a fast horse to overtake those animals.”

“Does it?” I asked innocently.

“Yes.  But come along with us.  We’re going to kill them more for the sport than anything else.  After we take the tongues and a piece of the tenderloin, you may have what is left.”

Eleven animals were in the herd, which was about a mile distant.  I noticed they were making toward the creek for water.  I knew buffalo nature, and was aware that it would be difficult to turn them from their course.  I therefore started toward the creek to head them off, while the officers dashed madly up behind them.

The herd came rushing up past me, not a hundred yards distant, while their pursuers followed, three hundred yards in the rear.

“Now,” thought I, “is the time to get in my work.”  I pulled the blind bridle from Brigham, who knew as well as I did what was expected of him.  The moment he was free of the bridle he set out at top speed, running in ahead of the officers.  In a few jumps he brought me alongside the rear buffalo.  Raising old “Lucretia Borgia,” I killed the animal with one shot.  On went Brigham to the next buffalo, ten feet farther along, and another was disposed of.  As fast as one animal would fall, Brigham would pass to the next, getting so close that I could almost touch it with my gun.  In this fashion I killed eleven buffaloes with twelve shots.

As the last one dropped my horse stopped.  I jumped to the ground.  Turning round to the astonished officers, who had by this time caught up, I said: 

“Now, gentlemen, allow me to present you with all the tongues and tenderloins from these animals that you want.”

Captain Graham, who, I soon learned, was the senior officer, gasped.  “Well, I never saw the like before!  Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Cody,” I said.

Lieutenant Thompson, one of the party, who had met me at Fort Harker, cried out:  “Why, that is Bill Cody, our old scout.”  He introduced me to his comrades, Captain Graham and Lieutenants Reed, Emmick, and Ezekial.

Graham, something of a horseman himself, greatly admired Brigham.  “That horse of yours has running points,” he admitted.

The officers were a little sore at not getting a single shot; but the way I had killed the buffaloes, they said, amply repaid them for their disappointment.  It was the first time they had ever seen or heard of a white man running buffaloes without either saddle or bridle.

I told them Brigham knew nearly as much about the business as I did.  He was a wonderful horse.  If the buffalo did not fall at the first shot he would stop to give me a second chance; but if, on the second shot, I did not kill the game, he would go on impatiently as if to say:  “I can’t fool away my time by giving you more than two shots!”