We spent a few days in exploring the surrounding country, and went far up and down the river acquainting ourselves with the hills and valleys. The _hide_ season was now here, and being well _prepared_, we expected to take many a pelt, and have lots of sport. We had prepared ourselves with a great many little pegs, and with these we pinned to the ground, flesh side up, the hides that we gathered, until the hill-side in front of our door was pretty well covered. Every now and then we met a _brother hunter_ upon the plains; and with him we had many a pleasant chat, and learned the history of the country from the present back through many years. It is interesting to listen to the tales of the old hunters who roamed the wild prairie thirty years ago, and who have ever since neighbored with wild animals and savages, and reaped a livelihood from the western wilds. They say that many years ago, when they first came to the country, if a person were upon a slight elevation when the herd was passing by, the valley would be covered with buffaloes as far as the eye could reach, rendering the whole country a dark, moving mass, and compelling the Forty-niners _en-route_ for California to stop over for whole days, until the herd crossed over. Though there were small herds of _thirty_ and _forty_ moving in _all directions_, the _main herd_ moved in a body, and unlike cattle, kept closely together. Before the time of _railroads_ through the West, they used to hunt all winter and dry the hides, and haul them east in the _spring_, making large profits. But when the Kansas Pacific, Union Pacific, and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads were built, the buffaloes were very plenty; and meat being in good demand, and having an outlet for the shipment of hides, great numbers of hunters swarmed the prairie, and the slaughter of the animal was wholesale. Good robe hides then being worth four and five dollars, the animal, rich and delicious, and for which many a poor eastern family would be thankful, after being stripped of its winding-sheet, was left to decay in the sun or be devoured by the howling wolves. They say they used to lie down upon the prairie and _shoot_; and the longer they shot, and the more they killed, the thicker they came around; and they often found it necessary to get out of the way to keep themselves from being trampled into the earth. In this way they were slaughtered by thousands. The number became rapidly reduced, until to-day the main herd consists of but a few thousands, and small herds of twenty and thirty wander here and there, reclining upon the soft plain and nipping the rich grass from the hills that once echoed the bellowings of the innumerable herd. The great numbers spoken of somewhat startled us, and sounded more like a _fable_ than a _pleasant story_; but when we traveled over the plains and saw sometimes fifty and sixty skeletons almost on a _heap_, and whole _acres_ almost _covered_