By the summer of 1873, the great Arkansas River herd was gone, as was the Republican herd before it. The only one left, claimed the old hide hunters in Dodge City, was a vast herd south of the Cimarron in Comanche territory. But only a fool with no wish to go on living--and a buffalo hunter named Gage Jameson--would head down that way. Elmer Kelton was recently voted All-Time Best Western Author by the Western Writers of America.