the same region, they could be seen in single herds covering a
thousand acres. When frightened and running, they were turned from
their course with the greatest difficulty.
A train on the trail they were crossing was only safe in halting and
allowing it to pass. The pressure from the rear was so great that the
front could not halt. Some of the old plainsmen told of "a
tenderfoot's" experience, who was going to have some "rare sport, and
his pick of an entire bunch." He observed a large herd quietly
grazing and saw by making a detour, up a dry ravine, where he would
be hidden from view, he could get immediately in their front. He
succeeded, and tying his mule behind him, concealed himself in the
edge of some bushes upon the bank of the creek. He did not have long
to wait, something in the rear frightened the herd and it began to
come directly toward him. As soon as in reach, he began to fire and
kill. It would break the ranks for an instant only, and he at once
saw death impending, as there was not a tree large enough to climb.
He had shot until his gun was hot, but all in vain. Just then his old
mule tied in the bushes opened up his musical "honk, honk," such as
only a thoroughly frightened mule can utter, and the whole herd
opened right and left, and the man was saved.
Some have expressed a wonder that these noble animals, in such
myriads, should so soon have disappeared. It is easily seen, in the
fact of the improved firearms used by the Indians, and that they
killed, for food, skins for clothing, and robes for the market, only
the cows and calves. They selected only the choice cuts of the meat,
and left the great bodies for the wolves and other varments. They
could tan only the skins of cows and calves for clothing and for
tepee covers. It was a sickening sight to pass over the place of
slaughter, and thus see hundreds of bodies, with only tongues and
choice cuts and skins taken. American hunters were equally
sacrificial. Half a century later the writer rode over the same land
and saw Indians, all across the region, with carts and pack ponies
gathering up bones of the buffalo. Passing stations along the Great
Northern and Northern Pacific railroads, one passes ricks of bones
half a mile long on each side, and as high as the tops of the cars,
waiting for shipment East as fertilizers, and horn handles for knives
and other uses in the arts. Only two living wild herds of buffalo are
now reported, one small one in Texas, and one carefully protected by
the government in Yellowstone Park. It would have been wise and
humane had they been protected sooner by the strong arm of the law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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