“Well, I’ve got to make it yet,” I said, and then to Rose:  “How did the fall hit you?”

“What fall?”

“From millionaire to pauper.”

“It hasn’t got through hitting me yet,” he said solemnly.

Rose went back to his grading contract, and I resumed my work as a buffalo hunter.  When the Perry House, the Rome hotel, was moved to Hays City and rebuilt there, I took my wife and daughter and installed them there.

It was hard to descend from the rank of millionaires to that of graders and buffalo hunters, but we had to do it.  The rise and fall of modern Rome had made us, and it broke us!

CHAPTER IV

I soon became better acquainted with Dr. Webb, through whose agency our town of Rome had fallen almost overnight.  We visited him often in Hays, and eventually he presented my partner Rose and myself each with two lots in the new town.

Webb frequently accompanied me on buffalo-hunting excursions; and before he had been on the prairie a year there were few men who could kill more buffalo than he.

Once, when I was riding Brigham, and Webb was mounted on a splendid thoroughbred bay, we discovered a band of Indians about two miles distant, maneuvering so as to get between us and the town.  A gallop of three miles brought us between them and home; but by that time they had come within three-quarters of a mile of us.  We stopped to wave our hands at them, and fired a few shots at long range.  But as there were thirteen in the party, and they were getting a little too close, we turned and struck out for Hays.  They sent some scattering shots in pursuit, then wheeled and rode off toward the Saline River.

When there were no buffalo to hunt I tried the experiment of hitching Brigham to one of our railroad scrapers, but he was not gaited for that sort of work.  I had about given up the idea of extending his usefulness to railroading when news came that buffaloes were coming over the hill.  There had been none in the vicinity for some time.  As a consequence, meat was scarce.

I took the harness from Brigham, mounted him bareback and started after the game, being armed with my new buffalo killer which I had named “Lucretia Borgia,” an improved breech-loading needle-gun which I had obtained from the Government.

As I was riding toward the buffaloes I observed five men coming from the fort.  They, too, had seen the herd and had come to join the chase.  As I neared them I saw that they were officers, newly arrived at the fort, a captain and four lieutenants.

“Hello, my friend!” sang out the captain as they came up.  “I see you are after the same game we are.”

“Yes, sir,” I returned.  “I saw those buffaloes coming.  We are out of fresh meat, so I thought I would get some.”

The captain eyed my cheap-looking outfit closely.  Brigham, though the best buffalo horse in the West, was decidedly unprepossessing in appearance.