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Show 76 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS. face these wolves, they were at times almost ready to attack men. We soon found it would be impossible to save the cattle. Already some twenty- five had died or been killed by the wolves within a week. It was decided to kill the rest, some fifty head. A few were in living order, but many would have died within twenty- four hours. In fact we killed them to keep them from dying. We had a first- class butcher from London, who dressed everything in the best style. Everything was saved that we thought might be eaten. We hung the meat up. The poorest of it we did not expect to eat, but intended to use it for wolf bait further along when the carcases were all devoured, provided we could get traps from the Platte bridge, which we afterwards did. We never used our poor beef for wolf bait as we had to eat the whole of it ourselves, and finally the hides were all consumed for food. After killing the cattle we had nothing much to do but fix up the fort and look after four ponies we had left. Brother Hampton and myself had our saddle horses yet in good order. There were plenty of guns and ammunition left with us, also dishes and cooking utensils. After thoroughly repairing the houses, chinking and daubing them, we overhauled the goods stored away. While storing the bales and boxes the snow had drifted in among them. There was nothing but dirt floors and the goods had been tumbled in without any regard to order. Having cleaned out everything, we took ox yokes, of which there were a great many, and made floors of them and then piled the goods on them. While handling the goods we found some coffee, sugar and fruit, also a roll of leather. These we kept out and |
