Excerpt from Gunfighters of the Western Frontier
© 1999 ProofmarkBill Tilghman
It is now thirty-seven years since a slim-built, bright-looking youth, scarcely seventeen years old, pulled up for camp one evening on the bank of the Medicine Lodge River in Southwestern Kansas, only a few miles north of the boundary line between Kansas and the Indian Territory. An Indian uprising lasting more than a year had been put down the year previously by General Custer and, as a natural consequence, the Indians who had taken part in the uprising entertained for the white man anything but a friendly feeling.
Billy Tilghman, like the others in that country at the time, became a buffalo hunter and was working along nicely until the Indians got after him. The Indians, by the terms of the treaty lately concluded with the government, had no right to leave their reservations without first obtaining permission from their agent. It was therefore as unlawful for an Indian to be found in Kansas without government permission as it would have been for a white man to enter the Indian Territory for the purpose of either hunting or trading whiskey with the Indians. The Indians, however, cared little for treaty stipulations at the time and often crossed over into Kansas for the purpose of pillage as well as killing buffalo.
The Indian, besides destroying the hunter's buffalo hides and carrying away his provisions and blankets while he was temporarily away attending to the day's hunting on the range, was often known to have added murder to his numerous other crimes, so that an Indian off his reservation got to be viewed with apprehension by the hunters. It was a well-understood thing among the buffalo hunters whose camps were located close to the reservation line that any time a hunter could be taken unawares by the Indians he was almost sure to be killed, if for no other reason than to secure his gun and belt of cartridges. The Indians had, in prowling around the country one day, come upon Billy Tilghman's camp and, after cutting up what hides he had staked out on the ground for drying purposes, proceeded to set fire to those already dried and piled up ready for market.
When Tilghman and his two companions returned to camp that evening, after their day's work on the range, they found their camp a complete wreck. Besides the destruction of several hundred dollars' worth of hides, they also found that the noble red men who had paid their camp a visit during their absence had carried off everything there was to eat. But, as buffalo hunters found no trouble in making a hearty meal of buffalo meat alone, they did not despair nor go to bed on an empty stomach.
The day's hunt had resulted in the taking of twenty-five buffalo hides, and the question now arose what was to be done with them. If they were staked out to dry as the others had been, there was no reason for believing the Indians would not return and destroy them as they had the others. Tilghman's two partners were for moving away first thing in the morning.
"We are liable to all be killed,"said one of them, "if we stay here any longer."
...
"Ed," said Billy to one of the partners, "go and hitch up the team and drive to Griffin's ranch and get a sack of flour, some coffee and sugar, and a sack of grain for the horses, and get back here before daylight in the morning, and Henry and I will unload those hides and peg them out to dry. Don't forget to feet the team when you get there and let them rest up for an hour or two, as you will have plenty of time to do that and get back here by daybreak."
Griffin's ranch was fifteen miles north of Tilghman's camp on the Medicine Lodge River and the only place nearer than Wichita, which was one hundred and fifty mile farther east, where hunting supplies and provisions could be obtained.
Ed was soon on his way to Griffin's ranch, which only took three hours to reach. While Tilghman and Henry were busily engaged in fleshing and staking out the green hides, Billy remarked that if those thieving Cheyennes came again around his camp for the purpose of destroying things, there would likely be a big pow-wow take place among the Indians as soon as the news of what occurred reached them. "For," said he with some emphasis, "I don't intend to stop shooting as long as there is one of them in sight."
"But supposing," said Henry, "that there is a dozen or so of them when they come, what then?"
"Kill the entire outfit," replied Billy, "if they don't run away."
