American Big Game Hunting Part 5

In all its ways and habits the p.r.o.ngbuck differs as much from deer and elk as from goat and sheep. Now that the buffalo has gone, it is the only game really at home on the wide plains. It is a striking-looking little creature, with its big bulging eyes, single-p.r.o.nged horns, and the sharply contrasted coloration of its coat; this coat, by the way, being composed of curiously coa.r.s.e and brittle hair. In marked contrast to deer, antelope never seek to elude observation; all they care for is to be able to see themselves. As they have good noses and wonderful eyes, and as they live by preference where there is little or no cover, shots at them are usually obtained only at far longer range than is the case with other game; and yet, as they are easily seen, and often stand looking at the hunter just barely within very long rifle-range, they are always tempting their pursuer to the expenditure of cartridges. More shots are wasted at antelope than at any other game. They would be even harder to secure were it not that they are subject to fits of panic, folly, or excessive curiosity, which occasionally put them fairly at the mercy of the rifle-bearing hunter.

p.r.o.ngbucks are very fast runners indeed, even faster than deer. They vary greatly in speed, however, precisely as is the case with deer; in fact, I think that the average hunter makes altogether too little account of this individual variation among different animals of the same kind. Under the same conditions different deer and antelope vary in speed and wariness, exactly as bears and cougars vary in cunning and ferocity. When in perfect condition a full-grown buck antelope, from its strength and size, is faster and more enduring than an old doe; but a fat buck, before the rut has begun, will often be pulled down by a couple of good greyhounds much more speedily than a flying yearling or two-year-old doe. Under favorable circ.u.mstances, when the antelope was jumped near by, I have seen one overhauled and seized by a single first-cla.s.s greyhound; and, on the other hand, I have more than once seen a p.r.o.nghorn run away from a whole pack of just as good dogs. With a fair start, and on good ground, a thoroughbred horse, even though handicapped by the weight of a rider, will run down an antelope; but this is a feat which should rarely be attempted, because such a race, even when carried to a successful issue, is productive of the utmost distress to the steed.

Ordinary horses will sometimes run down an antelope which is slower than the average. I had on my ranch an under-sized old Indian pony named White Eye, which, when it was fairly roused, showed a remarkable turn of speed, and had great endurance. One morning on the round-up, when for some reason we did not work the cattle, I actually ran down an antelope in fair chase on this old pony. It was a nursing doe, and I came over the crest of a hill, between forty and fifty yards away from it. As it wheeled to start back, the old cayuse p.r.i.c.ked up his ears with great interest, and the minute I gave him a sign was after it like a shot.

Whether, being a cow-pony, he started to run it just as if it were a calf or a yearling trying to break out of the herd, or whether he was overcome by dim reminiscences of buffalo-hunting in his Indian youth, I know not. At any rate, after the doe he went, and in a minute or two I found I was drawing up to it. I had a revolver, but of course did not wish to kill her, and so got my rope ready to try to take her alive. She ran frantically, but the old pony, bending level to the ground, kept up his racing lope and closed right in beside her. As I came up she fairly bleated. An expert with the rope would have captured her with the utmost ease; but I missed, sending the coil across her shoulders. She again gave an agonized bleat, or bark, and wheeled around like a shot. The cow-pony stopped almost, but not quite, as fast, and she got a slight start, and it was some little time before I overhauled her again. When I did I repeated the performance, and this time when she wheeled she succeeded in getting on some ground where I could not follow, and I was thrown out.

I have done a good deal of coursing with greyhounds at one time or another, but always with scratch packs. The average frontiersman seems to have an inveterate and rooted objection to a dog with pure blood. If he gets a greyhound, his first thought is to cross it with something else, whether a bull mastiff, or a setter, or a foxhound. There are a few men who keep leashes of greyhounds of pure blood, bred and trained to antelope-coursing, and who do their coursing scientifically, carrying the dogs out to the hunting-grounds in wagons and exercising every care in the sport; but these men are rare. The average man who dwells where antelope are sufficiently abundant to make coursing a success, simply follows the pursuit at odd moments, with whatever long-legged dogs he and his neighbors happen to have; and his methods of coursing are apt to be as rough as his outfit. My own coursing has been precisely of this character. At different times I have had on my ranch one or two high-cla.s.s greyhounds and Scotch deer-hounds, with which we have coursed deer and antelope, as well as jack-rabbits, foxes, and coyotes; and we have usually had with them one or two ordinary hounds, and various half-bred dogs. I must add, however, that some of the latter were very good. I can recall in particular one fawn-colored beast, a cross between a greyhound and a foxhound, which ran nearly as fast as the former, though it occasionally yelped in shrill tones. It could also trail well, and was thoroughly game; on one occasion it ran down and killed a coyote single-handed.

On going out with these dogs, I rarely chose a day when I was actually in need of fresh meat. If this was the case, I usually went alone with the rifle; but if one or two other men were at the ranch, and we wanted a morning's fun, we would often summon the dogs, mount our horses, and go trooping out to the antelope-ground. As there was a good deer-country between the ranch bottom and the plains where we found the p.r.o.ngbuck, it not infrequently happened that we had a chase after black-tail or white-tail on the way. Moreover, when we got out to the ground, before sighting antelope, it frequently happened that the dogs would jump a jack-rabbit or a fox, and away the whole set would go after it, streaking through the short gra.s.s, sometimes catching their prey in a few hundred yards, and sometimes having to run a mile or so. In consequence, by the time we reached the regular hunting-ground, the dogs were apt to have lost a good deal of their freshness. We would get them in behind the horses and creep cautiously along, trying to find some solitary p.r.o.ngbuck in a suitable place, where we could bring up the dogs from behind a hillock, and give them a fair start after it. Usually we failed to get the dogs near enough for a good start; and in most cases their chases after unwounded p.r.o.ngbuck resulted in the quarry running clean away from them. Thus the odds were greatly against them; but, on the other hand, we helped them wherever possible with the rifle. We often rode well scattered out, and if one of us put up an antelope, or had a chance at one when driven by the dogs, he would always fire, and the pack were saved from the ill effects of total discouragement by so often getting these wounded beasts. It was astonis.h.i.+ng to see how fast an antelope with a broken leg could run. If such a beast had a good start, and especially if the dogs were tired, it would often lead them a hard chase, and the dogs would be utterly exhausted after it had been killed; so that we would have to let them lie where they were for a long time before trying to lead them down to some stream-bed. If possible, we carried water for them in canteens.

There were red-letter days, however, in which our dogs fairly ran down and killed antelope,--days when the weather was cool, and when it happened that we got our dogs out to the ground without their being tired by previous runs, and found our quarry soon, and in favorable places for slipping the hounds. I remember one such chase in particular.

We had at the time a mixed pack, in which there was only one dog of my own, the others being contributed from various sources. It included two greyhounds, a rough-coated deerhound, a foxhound, and the fawn-colored crossbred mentioned above.

We rode out in the early morning, the dogs trotting behind us; and, coming to a low tract of rolling hills, just at the edge of the great prairie, we separated and rode over the crest of the nearest ridge. Just as we topped it, a fine buck leaped up from a hollow a hundred yards off, and turned to look at us for a moment. All the dogs were instantly spinning toward him down the gra.s.sy slope. He apparently saw those at the right, and, turning, raced away from us in a diagonal line, so that the left-hand greyhound, which ran cunningly and tried to cut him off, was very soon almost alongside. He saw her, however,--she was a very fast b.i.t.c.h,--just in time, and, wheeling, altered his course to the right. As he reached the edge of the prairie, this alteration nearly brought him in contact with the crossbred, which had obtained a rather poor start, on the extreme right of the line. Around went the buck again, evidently panic-struck and puzzled to the last degree, and started straight off across the prairie, the dogs literally at his heels, and we, urging our horses with whip and spur, but a couple of hundred yards behind. For half a mile the pace was tremendous, when one of the greyhounds made a spring at his ear, but, failing to make good his hold, was thrown off. However, it halted the buck for a moment, and made him turn quarter round, and in a second the deerhound had seized him by the flank and thrown him, and all the dogs piled on top, never allowing him to rise.

Later in the day we again put up a buck not far off. At first it went slowly, and the dogs hauled up on it; but when they got pretty close, it seemed to see them, and letting itself out, went clean away from them almost without effort.

Once or twice we came upon bands of antelope, and the hounds would immediately take after them. I was always rather sorry for this, however, because the frightened animals, as is generally the case when beasts are in a herd, seemed to impede one another, and the chase usually ended by the dogs seizing a doe, for it was of course impossible to direct them to any particular beast.

It will be seen that with us coursing was a homely sport. Nevertheless we had very good fun, and I shall always have enjoyable memories of the rapid gallops across the prairie, on the trail of a flying p.r.o.ngbuck.

_Theodore Roosevelt._

After Wapiti in Wyoming

I went into camp, one night in September, on one of the many branches of the upper Snake River, in northwestern Wyoming. It was after a most severe and perplexing day's pack,--one of those days in which "things"

go wrong. The packs turned, the cinches refused to hold, and the fresh little Indian pony--for which we had traded a sore-backed packhorse, one cup of sugar, and a half-dozen cartridges, three days previous, with some Bannack Indians who came to my camp-fire on the Snake River--fancied she could put everybody in good temper by having a bucking fit. She had managed to settle one side of her pack on a sharp stub when she came down from a flight, and to punch a fair-sized hole in the canvas cover, which immediately began to flow granulated sugar; but by good luck we managed to catch her lariat and rearrange her pack, minus about one half our supply of sweets. The day was finished with eight horses thoroughly tired, and three men in a condition which admitted of only the fewest words with the longest possible intervals between. Gloom overhung the outfit.

These feelings disappeared as soon as we had finished our supper, and we had just lighted our pipes when, close by our camp-fire, we heard clearly the call of a bull elk. Up to that time I had not had a shot at this, the grandest of all the deer family, and I was quickly on my feet, rifle in hand. Wading the brook, I stalked as hurriedly as I dared toward an opening some forty rods beyond. It was just the last glimmer of daylight, and I made time until I came to the bank, over which I could look into the open park where I felt the royal beast was. What a picture greeted my gaze! The park was perhaps four hundred yards across, and nearly oval in shape, and from the opposite side ran out, nearly to the middle, a plateau some thirty feet in height. On the point of this, standing as immovable as one of Barye's bronzes, was a bull elk with antlers that would please the most fastidious sportsman in the world. In a moment he elevated his head and gave a call ending with those liquid flute-notes that make the blood run quickly in the most phlegmatic hunter's veins. A quick glance showed me that I could not approach him any nearer, and putting up my sight, as I thought, high enough, I pressed the trigger, and saw the bullet strike just under his belly. He whirled and made for cover, and out of pure desperation I gave him another shot, without result. In a shorter time than I have spent in telling this, the twilight had entirely disappeared, and I wended my way back to camp with only the memory of what I had seen to repay me for the wetting which my hurried crossing of the brook had given me.

For three days we had climbed mountains, wallowed through mud-holes, and tobogganed down clay banks, hunting for elk which the Indians had frightened away from the Snake River by their noisy mode of hunting.

There were four lodges of Bannacks, and they had some eighty horses of various kinds and colors. They said they had spent six weeks there jerking elk-meat for their winter's food. The country which we crossed during these three days was completely checkered with elk trails, mud-wallows, slivered trees, and many other evidences that large bands of elk had occupied the country for months; and my packer insisted that we would surely find them if we continued hunting in the rough mountains which lay to the east.

Early the next day, while at the brook making my morning toilet, I heard Stewart say to the cook that the horses had gone out of the country; and after two minutes of very vehement remarks, he informed me that five horses had taken the back trail, and that Worth must go with him to head them off. So, each taking a horse, they rode away, leaving me to keep camp with only old Scoop Shovel, a split-eared packhorse, for company.

Always having loved nature, I concluded that a little prospecting on my own hook would be preferable to lounging about camp waiting for the return of the men and horses; so, saddling old Scoop Shovel, I forded the brook and, crossing the scene of my bad shooting the previous evening, climbed a small range of hills. On the opposite side I found a good-sized stream, which I thought was the main Coulter Creek.

Following it up some two miles, I suddenly heard a bull elk call, and fastening my horse, I crept toward the sound. Coming out of some thick woods, I saw across the stream a band of seven elk and three or four calves. They were feeding away from me, and I decided that if I crossed the stream and reached the top of a little hill before they could walk out of the woods and get into the middle of an open park, some half-mile across, I might be able to get a shot. The stream was quite rapid and fairly deep, and while I did not care for wet feet, I hoped to escape a wet jacket. However, as I stepped boldly in, the current whirled me off my feet, and the water opened its gates and let me find a resting-place on the slippery, smooth stones of its bottom.

On gaining the opposite bank, I broke into a run for my game. I have always been a fair sprinter, but before I had reached the hill, fifty or sixty rods away, I was completely pumped, and had to stop. Fortunately I was running toward game, rather than being chased by a grizzly, for I had shot my bolt. The high alt.i.tude had put me out of the race.

However, a rest for a few minutes got me in order, and slowly climbing the hill, I looked over and saw that the band, a hundred yards away, had stopped feeding, and with elevated heads were trying to catch the scent of possible danger. I decided to chance a shot, and with lungs well filled covered the bull. At the report, I heard the shot strike, and with three leaps he came to his knees, but only quickly to regain his feet and trot away. I started on the run toward him, and he having then reached the brook, leaped for the opposite bank. Firing while he was in the air, I saw him fall on his head on landing, and hurried up just as he was having his last struggle. My first shot had been too far back; the second went in at the flank, ranging forward and breaking his shoulder.

His harem were somewhat dazed, and did not evince much fear, but stood crowded together looking at me. I shouted at them, and as that did not frighten them away, waved my hat and walked toward the band; they only trotted a few yards and halted, facing me. I then fired a shot over their heads, and running at full speed toward them, they broke into a trot, crossed a small piece of thin timber, slowed down to a walk, crossed the open park, and, occasionally stopping to look back, finally disappeared up the mountain-side. The bull was a magnificent specimen, with a head royal, twelve good points, and remarkably even and symmetrical. I killed other bulls with more points, but none which was in all respects so perfect as this.

The next night I camped within two hundred yards of this elk, and was awakened by hearing some large animal feeding on his carca.s.s; but the night was dark, and as I was without any light but firebrands, I did not make the attempt to see if it was a grizzly--which the next day proved it to have been. I asked my packer if he wanted to go and interview the visitor; he said he had not lost any grizzlies, and we concluded that our blankets were more comfortable than the unknown quant.i.ty of a grizzly in the dark.

The next day, on Pinon Mountain, hearing several bulls call from the same place, I stalked the band and counted thirty-odd head, with five bulls in sight, all within eighty yards. With my gla.s.s I counted the points on each head, and selecting the finest, fired but one shot, and the bull did not go more than twenty feet before falling. I think, with my repeating-rifle, I could have killed three or four more, but I refrained from doing so; in fact, I did not kill a cow during the trip.

The band did not go far; for, while skinning out this head, I could hear the bulls call within a few hundred yards down the mountain-side. I spent two days in the little park at the foot of Pinon Mountain, and saw and heard a great many elk, in bands of three to thirty, but refrained from shooting. Bear signs were fairly abundant; but I did not see a single live bear then. Later, I saw a fine one inside the Yellowstone Park line; and as I had promised Captain Harris I would not shoot inside the park, I told the bear to move on, which he did at a particularly slow pace. This was a black bear; possibly a grizzly would have been more neighborly.

I enjoyed one triumph over my men, who, with the usual freedom of Westerners, had dubbed me "Pilgrim"--Stewart, in particular, fancied a man from the East could not teach him anything regarding sport. One Sunday morning he said he would go out and catch a string of trout, that we might have a change of diet. He spent an hour and a half at the brook, and returned with one small Rocky Mountain trout, about four inches in length, saying there were plenty of trout, but they were so wild he could not catch them. I had noticed, on crossing the brook, that the fish would run for a hiding-place, being easily frightened; so, after he had exhausted all his art, I said I would try them. With a fish-pole, a brown hackle, and a bit of elk-meat on the point of the hook, I crawled through the gra.s.s, and without showing myself, snapped my fly on to the water, felt a pull, and whisked out a trout. I continued my practice until I had all I wanted, and returned to camp, remarking to the cook as I threw them down:

"Stewart don't know anything about fis.h.i.+ng; he ought to take some lessons. There are plenty of trout in the brook only waiting to be caught"; which piqued Stewart so much that he sulked for the balance of the day, highly displeased at being beaten by a tenderfoot at the simple game of fis.h.i.+ng.

Northwestern Wyoming is a magnificent country, and the weather equals the country. On our trip we had but two hours' rain; at night the thermometer went below freezing, but during the middle of the day it ran as high as seventy. One of the curious facts is that the elk trails could not be better located by human mind or hand to overcome the difficulties of the broken country, and they are used almost entirely by hunters and pack-trains in pa.s.sing from one point to another. The elk has an eye to the beautiful as well, for I often found well-beaten lookouts on the extreme edge of precipices, showing that they enjoy resting at these points to view the beautiful scenery. It was a veritable paradise for big game, and there must have been hundreds of elk within a few miles of my camp. There was some sign of moose, and the Bannack Indians told me that they had killed one with "heap big horns."

Much against my wishes we decided to break camp and move north, when from the Pinon Mountain we could see the higher peaks north of us covered with snow; for we feared that we might be caught by a heavy snowfall, and have trouble in getting out. My intention was to have gone south to Buffalo Fork, looking for bear, but this I was obliged to postpone to some future date; so we bade good-by to the charming little park where we were camped, and journeyed north, lowering our alt.i.tude many hundred feet as we dropped down on the head waters of the next creek. Its valley and the surrounding mountains were as well supplied with elk as the country from which we had just come. I saw bear signs quite frequently, and many of them fresh, but did not spend much time looking for the animal, as I found the usual and most successful way was to bait with an elk carca.s.s and watch through the day, hoping that a bear would scent the bait and come to feed on the flesh. This is slow business, and I preferred more activity. One night I distinctly heard the cry of a mountain-lion, or panther, several times.

Going up Snake River, I pa.s.sed within the boundaries of the park, and camped one night close by a little pond just under Mount Sheridan, some two miles south of Heart Lake. As I was eating my supper, half an hour before sunset, a fine band of elk came out on the mossy sh.o.r.es of the pond and frisked and played for some time. The old bull would hook and prod the cows, and occasionally call, getting answers from nearly every point of the compa.s.s. The next day we skirted Heart Lake on the westerly side as far as the inlet, then through and over the curious hot-spring formation for a couple of miles.

Heart Lake is a charming sheet of water, nestling as it does among these heavily timbered mountains, and it is said to have an abundance of fine trout. While riding along the sh.o.r.e I often saw a good-sized fish shoot from the shallow out into deep water. There were a great many ducks and geese in and about the inlet, and one flock of geese offered a most tempting shot. My pack from Heart Lake to the Hot Springs on the sh.o.r.es of Yellowstone Lake was very tedious, as we found no drinking-water on the trail. The day was warm, and I looked forward to my arrival at Yellowstone Lake with antic.i.p.ated pleasure in the drink of spring water which I was to have that night; but on arriving I found the spring dried up and nothing but lake water to drink. That was warm, with a sulphurous flavor, owing to the hot springs close by the sh.o.r.e and under the water as well, besides holding many wigglers. I strained a bottleful of water through some linen and hung it on the limb of a tree, waiting for it to cool, and looking at it with the hungry eye of a wolf watching meat hung out of reach.

My Indian pony had a new experience the following morning. After starting our pack-train, we skirted the sh.o.r.es of Yellowstone Lake, and coming to a quick-running stream, which in its clearness looked very inviting, the Indian pony succeeded in loosing her trail-rope, and pushed her head nearly up to her eyes into this clear water. Withdrawing it quickly with a scream, she cut such capers that for a while our pack-train was more or less disarranged. The water had run only a short distance from a boiling spring, and the heat had taken off a good deal of the hair from her face. For twenty-four hours I could not induce her to drink.

On the trail to the outlet of Yellowstone Lake, I saw several bands of elk, and rode within thirty yards of them. They did not show signs of fear, but quietly walked off into the bushes, with the exception of one bull accompanied by three cows. They were lying down, and when I came to them, the cows moved off; but the bull stood there, and for a few minutes I thought he was going to charge. He pawed the ground, shook his head, and kept alternately taking a few steps toward me, and then backing a little, ripping up the soil with his antlers, and breaking the small bushes, in token of challenge. I concluded to retreat rather than fight, so quietly withdrew, leaving him in possession of the field.

While in camp one day, on Lizard Creek, I climbed Wild Cat Mountain, hunting up a trail that would lead to the eastward; and coming out on the southern point of the mountain, a magnificent view opened to my gaze. On the south, immediately at the foot of this mountain, was a park; it was dotted with clumps and groves of fine trees, through which ran a good-sized stream. The meadow ran a half-mile to the foot-hills, well covered with long gra.s.s, which in the sunlight, moving with a gentle breeze, rose and fell like the billows of the ocean. For miles beyond were mountains piled on mountains; and I could see clearly the grand Teton range springing up from Jackson's Lake: Mount Hayden, some fourteen thousand feet high, with Mount Moran just north of it,--Hayden rising majestically from the surface of the lake thousands of feet, with sharp slopes and walls of bare rock above, and its base buried in a darkness of pine and spruce. Their snow-covered summits and immense glaciers must impress any beholder with a strong sense of sublimity. It is said that on the summit of one of the Tetons there is an inclosure made of rocks several feet in height, built by what long-vanished and forgotten race of builders no man will ever know.

_F. C. Crocker._

In Buffalo Days

On the floor, on either side of my fireplace, lie two buffalo skulls.

They are white and weathered, the horns cracked and bleached by the snows and frosts and the rains and heats of many winters and summers.

Often, late at night, when the house is quiet, I sit before the fire, and muse and dream of the old days; and as I gaze at these relics of the past, they take life before my eyes. The matted brown hair again clothes the dry bone, and in the empty orbits the wild eyes gleam. Above me curves the blue arch; away on every hand stretches the yellow prairie, and scattered near and far are the dark forms of buffalo. They dot the rolling hills, quietly feeding like tame cattle, or lie at ease on the slopes, chewing the cud and half asleep. The yellow calves are close by their mothers; on little eminences the great bulls paw the dust, and mutter and moan, while those whose horns have grown one, two, and three winters are mingled with their elders.

Not less peaceful is the scene near some river-bank, when the herds come down to water. From the high prairie on every side they stream into the valley, stringing along in single file, each band following the deep trail worn in the parched soil by the tireless feet of generations of their kind. At a quick walk they swing along, their heads held low. The long beards of the bulls sweep the ground; the shuffling tread of many hoofs marks their pa.s.sing, and above each long line rises a cloud of dust that sometimes obscures the westering sun.

Life, activity, excitement, mark another memory as vivid as these. From behind a near hill mounted men ride out and charge down toward the herd.

For an instant the buffalo pause to stare, and then crowd together in a close throng, jostling and pus.h.i.+ng one another, a confused ma.s.s of horns, hair, and hoofs. Heads down and tails in air, they rush away from their pursuers, and as they race along herd joins herd, till the black ma.s.s sweeping over the prairie numbers thousands. On its skirts hover the active, nimble hors.e.m.e.n, with tw.a.n.ging bowstrings and sharp arrows piercing many fat cows. The naked Indians cling to their naked horses as if the two were parts of one incomparable animal, and swing and yield to every motion of their steeds with the grace of perfect horsemans.h.i.+p. The ponies, as quick and skilful as the men, race up beside the fattest of the herd, swing off to avoid the charge of a maddened cow, and, returning, dart close to the victim, whirling hither and yon, like swallows on the wing. And their riders, with the unconscious skill, grace, and power of matchless archery, are drawing their bows to the arrow's head, and driving the feathered shaft deep through the bodies of the buffalo. Returning on their tracks, they skin the dead, then load the meat and robes on their horses, and with laughter and jest ride away.

After them, on the deserted prairie, come the wolves to tear at the carca.s.ses. The rain and the snow wash the blood from the bones, and fade and bleach the hair. For a few months the skeleton holds together; then it falls apart, and the fox and the badger pull about the whitening bones and scatter them over the plain. So this cow and this bull of mine may have left their bones on the prairie, where I found them and picked them up to keep as mementos of the past, to dream over, and in such reverie to see again the swelling hosts which yesterday covered the plains, and to-day are but a dream.

So the buffalo pa.s.sed into history. Once an inhabitant of this continent from the Arctic slope to Mexico, and from Virginia to Oregon, and, within the memory of men yet young, roaming the plains in such numbers that it seemed as if it could never be exterminated, it has now disappeared as utterly as has the bison from Europe. For it is probable that the existing herds of that practically extinct species, now carefully guarded in the forests of Grodno, about equal in numbers the buffalo in the Yellowstone Park; while the wild bison in the Caucasus may be compared with the "wood" buffalo which survive in the Peace River district. In view of the former abundance of our buffalo, this parallel is curious and interesting.

The early explorers were constantly astonished by the mult.i.tudinous herds which they met with, the regularity of their movements, and the deep roads which they made in traveling from place to place. Many of the earlier references are to territory east of the Mississippi, but even within the last fifteen years buffalo were to be seen on the Western plains in numbers so great that an entirely sober and truthful account seems like fable. Describing the abundance of buffalo in a certain region, an Indian once said to me, in the expressive sign-language of which all old frontiersmen have some knowledge: "The country was one robe."

Much has been written about their enormous abundance in the old days, but I have never read anything that I thought an exaggeration of their numbers as I have seen them. Only one who has actually spent months in traveling among them in those old days can credit the stories told about them. The trains of the Kansas Pacific Railroad used frequently to be detained by herds which were crossing the tracks in front of the engines; and in 1870, trains on which I was traveling were twice so held, in one case for three hours. When railroad travel first began on this road, the engineers tried the experiment of running through these pa.s.sing herds; but after their engines had been thrown from the tracks they learned wisdom, and gave the buffalo the right of way. Two or three years later, in the country between the Platte and Republican rivers, I saw a closely ma.s.sed herd of buffalo so vast that I dared not hazard a guess as to its numbers; and in later years I have traveled, for weeks at a time, in northern Montana without ever being out of sight of buffalo. These were not in close herds, except now and then when alarmed and running, but were usually scattered about, feeding or lying down on the prairie at a little distance from one another, much as domestic cattle distribute themselves in a pasture or on the range. As far as we could see on every side of the line of march, and ahead, the hillsides were dotted with dark forms, and the field-gla.s.s revealed yet others stretched out on every side, in one continuous host, to the most distant hills. Thus was gained a more just notion of their numbers than could be had in any other way, for the sight of this limitless territory occupied by these continuous herds was far more impressive than the spectacle of a surging, terrified ma.s.s of fleeing buffalo, even though the numbers which pa.s.sed rapidly before the observer's gaze in a short time were very great.

[Ill.u.s.tration: At Mid-day.