The Prospector, and The Silver Queen

One of the most daring acts in the history of this daring man was committed in Western Nebraska in 1866. From boyhood days, he had been noted as a hunter, and during the years which he spent in the scouting service, his splendid marksmanship and extraordinary achievements in the pursuit of game earned for him the reputation of being the best hunter west of the Missouri River. His success in that line was phenomenal and elicited expressions of surprise from all who had a knowledge of his work, and from those who were told of it.

Killing buffalo was not regarded by Creede, or by any of the hunters, as the best evidence of skill in marksmanship or in hunting. Any one who could ride a horse and fire a rifle or revolver could kill those clumsy, shaggy animals much easier than they could pursue and kill the ordinary steers on the western ranges to-day. In fact, the range steer is a far more dangerous animal when enraged than was the buffalo, for it possesses greater activity, and is more fleet of foot. The men who have gained notoriety on account of the number of buffalo they have killed are looked upon with quiet contempt by the true hunters of the plains and mountains, who justly claim that hunting excellence can only be shown in the still hunt, where tact and skill are required to approach within shooting distance of the elk, deer or antelope, and proficient marksmanship is necessary to kill it. When buffalo were plenty on the western plains, it was not at all unusual for women to ride after and kill them, and incur little, if any, risk of personal danger. Miss Emma Woodruff, a school teacher on Wood River in the sixties, and who afterwards married a telegraph operator at Wood River Station, became quite noted as a buffalo hunter, and regarded it but as an ordinary achievement to mount her pony and kill one of the shaggy monsters. The long-haired showmen who infest the country and tell thrilling stories of their desperate adventures and narrow escapes while hunting the buffalo, draw largely upon their imagination for bait to throw out to the gullible.