The men grew restless. They had not come all this way to sit in santa Fe. Tempers were short, and there were a few arguments with the local residents. Beale was afraid that sooner or later the arguments would grow into fights. Someone would get hurt, they would all land in prison. That was why he agreed to send a small hunting party into the mountains in the middle of March.
"But be careful," he said to the men he had picked. "If there's too much snow come back right away. Don't do anything foolish. Come back in three or four days. Unless,of course, you sight the white buffalo Beale was not whether the white buffaloes."
Beale was not sure whether the white buffaloes they hunted a myth. All he knew that people Fe talked about them. They were not only white, which was unusual for buffaloes, but their skin were large and soft. Beale and his men could sell the skins for a lot of money if they could catch these rare animals.
A Mexican guide they nicknamed "Charley" offered to go along with the hunters. After all, he claimed he had seen white buffaloes.
The hunting party had not been gone long when Charley pointed to specks in the distance. "Buffaloes,"he said. "White Buffaloes.