The Extermination of the American BisonHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
History
The Extermination of the American Bison
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
American bison; Wildlife conservation -- United States -- Sources
Two days later, when we were on the spot with the wagon to skin our game
and haul in the hides, four more buffaloes were discovered within 2
miles of us, and while I worked on one of the large bull skins to save
it from spoiling, the cowboys went after the buffalo, and by a really
brilliant exploit killed them all. The first one to fall was an old cow,
which was killed at the beginning of the chase, the next was an old
bull, who was brought down about 5 miles from the scene of the first
attack, then 2 miles farther on a yearling calf was killed. The fourth
buffalo, an immense old bull, was chased fully 12 miles before he was
finally brought down.
The largest bull fell about 8 miles from our temporary camp, in the
opposite direction from that in which our permanent camp lay, and at
about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. There not being time enough in which
to skin him completely and reach our rendezvous before dark, Messrs.
McNaney and Boyd dressed the carcass to preserve the meat, partly
skinned the legs, and came to camp.
As early as possible the next morning we drove to the carcass with the
wagon, to prepare both skin and skeleton and haul them in. When we
reached it we found that during the night a gang of Indians had robbed
us of our hard-earned spoil. They had stolen the skin and all the
eatable meat, broken up the leg-bones to get at the marrow, and even cut
out the tongue. And to injury the skulking thieves had added insult.
Through laziness they had left the head unskinned, but on one side of it
they had smeared the hair with red war-paint, the other side they had
daubed with yellow, and around the base of one horn they had tied a
strip of red flannel as a signal of defiance. Of course they had left
for parts unknown, and we never saw any signs of them afterward. The
gang visited the =LU=-bar ranch a few days later, so we learned
subsequently. It was then composed of eleven braves(!), who claimed to
be Assinniboines, and were therefore believed to be Piegans, the most
notorious horse and cattle thieves in the Northwest.
On October 22d Mr. Russell ran down in a fair chase a fine bull buffalo,
and killed him in the rough country bordering the High Divide on the
south. This was the ninth specimen. On the 26th we made an other trip
with the wagon to the Buffalo Buttes, as, for the sake of convenience,
we had named the group of buttes near which eight head had already been
taken. While Mr. Brown and I were getting the wagon across the bad
grounds, Messrs. McNaney and Boyd discovered a solitary bull buffalo
feeding in a ravine within a quarter of a mile of our intended camping
place, and the former stalked him and killed him at long range. The
buffalo had all been attracted to that locality by some springs which
lay between two groups of hills, and which was the only water within a
radius of about 15 miles. In addition to water, the grass around the
Buffalo Buttes was most excellent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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