A HUNTING PARTY
By John L. Cupples

In 1873 buffalo were still plentiful within fifty to seventy-five miles of Wichita. It was a common thing for the people of Butler, Cowley and other neighboring counties to get out "on the plains," which then meant Kiowa, Harper, Pratt and Meade counties, and that section of Kansas, and there kill their winter's meat and make a few dollars besides from the buffalo hides (worth $3 each in Wichita) and wolf skins…

The next morning it was snowing and continued to all day, but we drove on and came to the Chikaskia river by night. It was late and we did not cross. The next morning there was a foot of snow and the river was frozen over. We stayed there that day. The next night was colder. In the morning we undertook to move and found the ice almost strong enough to hold a horse. We drove to the river and chopped a road through the ice. The weather began to turn warm and more snow came from the south. About noon the wind shifted to the north and by 2 o'clock there was the worst blizzard anyone ever saw. We were then on the divide between Chikaskia and the Medicine rivers. The wind blew so hard and the snow fell so fast we could scarcely see from one team to the other. The trail was covered with drifted snow so that no one knew which way to go, and could travel only the way the storm drove. Right at this time we fell in with five or six more teams, hunters from Cowley county. We stopped and held a council of war and concluded we could do nothing but wait until the storm ceased. This was about three or four o'clock in the afternoon. Most of the men were panic-stricken, but a few of us concluded we were not out there to perish. Some of the men covered their heads with blankets and laid down, seemingly indifferent to their fate. Several of us tried to get them to make an effort to protect themselves by moving, exercising, but they seemed lifeless, despairing. One man took an ox whip and whipped three men out of a wagon, where they had lain-down without even a cover on the wagon. Some partly unhitched the teams, which stood shivering and suffering in the storm and cold. One man unhitched the tugs and the team drifted off with the storm. The next morning we found that Henry MARTIN, Doctor DUTTON, Stephen FOWLER and Alfred Combs were badly frozen. We took sacks of ear corn and built a fire on a knoll where the snow had been blown away, and carried the helpless men to it and cared for them as best we could. We sent out a detail to find some place of shelter. They soon came to the cedar brakes of the Medicine river, where the deep canyons were full of dead dry cedars. We moved in there, leaving our wagons on the top of the brakes and taking our teams down into the canyon and stayed several days. Two of our horses died from exposure, which left and[sic] extra wagon. We doubled up and moved on, came into the "big timber" below where Medicine Lodge now stands. There were about 300 Indians camped there. We hunted four or five days, got all the buffalo meat we wanted and started back. Coming to the Chikaskia, we saw several buffalo cross the river. Steve FOWIER became very uneasy about the buffalo; if we could only get across the river we could get some of them. Steve had his frozen feet done up in blankets. They were badly frozen…