Chapter IX: Part II: The Extermination (2)

"The Minatarees, as well as the Mandans, had suffered for some months past for want of meat, and had indulged in the most alarming fears that the herds of buffalo were emigrating so far off from them that there was great danger of their actual starvation, when it was suddenly announced through the village one morning at an early hour that a herd of buffaloes was in sight. A hundred or more young men mounted their horses, with weapons in hand, and steered their course to the prairies. * * *

"The plan of attack, which in this country is familiarly called a surround, was explicitly agreed upon, and the hunters, who were all mounted on their 'buffalo horses' and armed with bows and arrows or long lances, divided into two columns, taking opposite directions, and drew themselves gradually around the herd at a mile or more distance from them, thus forming a circle of horsemen at equal distances apart, who gradually closed in upon them with a moderate pace at a signal given. The unsuspecting herd at length 'got the wind' of the approaching enemy and fled in a mass in the greatest confusion. To the point where they were aiming to cross the line the horsemen were seen, at full speed, gathering and forming in a column, brandishing their weapons, and yelling in the most frightful manner, by which they turned the black and rushing mass, which moved off in an opposite direction, where they were again met and foiled in a similar manner, and wheeled back in utter confusion; by which time the horsemen had closed in from all directions, forming a continuous line around them, whilst the poor affrighted animals were eddying about in a crowded and confused mass, hooking and climbing upon each other, when the work of death commenced. I had rode up in the rear and occupied an elevated position at a few rods' distance, from which I could (like the general of a battlefield) survey from my horse's back the nature and the progress of the grand _mêlée_, but (unlike him) without the power of issuing a command or in any way directing its issue.

"In this grand turmoil [see illustration] a cloud of dust was soon raised, which in parts obscured the throng where the hunters were galloping their horses around and driving the whizzing arrows or their long lances to the hearts of these noble animals; which in many instances, becoming infuriated with deadly wounds in their sides, erected their shaggy manes over their bloodshot eyes and furiously plunged forward at the sides of their assailants' horses, sometimes goring them to death at a lunge and putting their dismounted riders to flight for their lives. Sometimes their dense crowd was opened, and the blinded horsemen, too intent on their prey amidst the cloud of dust, were hemmed and wedged in amidst the crowding beasts, over whose backs they were obliged to leap for security, leaving their horses to the fate that might await them in the results of this wild and desperate war. Many were the bulls that turned upon their assailants and met them with desperate resistance, and many were the warriors who were dismounted and saved themselves by the superior muscles of their legs; some who were closely pursued by the bulls wheeled suddenly around, and snatching the part of a buffalo robe from around their waists, threw it over the horns and eyes of the infuriated beast, and darting by its side drove the arrow or the lance to its heart; others suddenly dashed off upon the prairie by the side of the affrighted animals which had escaped from the throng, and closely escorting them for a few rods, brought down their heart's blood in streams and their huge carcasses upon the green and enameled turf.

"In this way this grand hunt soon resolved itself into a desperate battle, _and in the space of fifteen minutes resulted in the total destruction of the whole herd_, which in all their strength and fury were doomed, like every beast and living thing else, to fall before the destroying hands of mighty man.

"I had sat in trembling silence upon my horse and witnessed this extraordinary scene, which allowed not one of these animals to escape out of my sight. Many plunged off upon the prairie for a distance, but were overtaken and killed, and although I could not distinctly estimate the number that were slain, yet I am sure that some hundreds of these noble animals fell in this grand _mêlée_. * * * Amongst the poor affrighted creatures that had occasionally dashed through the ranks of their enemy and sought safety in flight upon the prairie (and in some instances had undoubtedly gained it), I saw them stand awhile, looking back, when they turned, and, as if bent on their own destruction, retraced their steps, and mingled themselves and their deaths with those of the dying throng. Others had fled to a distance on the prairies, and for want of company, of friends or of foes, had stood and gazed on till the battle-scene was over, seemingly taking pains to stay and hold their lives in readiness for their destroyers until the general destruction was over, when they fell easy victims to their weapons, making the slaughter complete."

It is to be noticed that _every animal_ of this entire herd of several hundred was slain on the spot, and there is no room to doubt that at least half (possibly much more) of the meat thus taken was allowed to become a loss. People who are so utterly senseless as to wantonly destroy their own source of food, as the Indians have done, certainly deserve to starve.

This "surround" method of wholesale slaughter was also practiced by the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Sioux, Pawnees, Ornabas, and probably many other tribes.

5. _Decoying and Driving._--Another method of slaughtering by wholesale is thus described by Lewis and Clarke, I, 235. The locality indicated was the Missouri River, in Montana, just above the mouth of Judith River:

"On the north we passed a precipice about 120 feet high, under which lay scattered the fragments of at least one hundred carcasses of buffaloes, although the water which had washed away the lower part of the hill, must have carried off many of the dead. These buffaloes had been chased down a precipice in a way very common on the Missouri, and by which vast herds are destroyed in a moment. The mode of hunting is to select one of the most active and fleet young men, who is disguised by a buffalo skin round his body; the skin of the head with the ears and horns fastened on his own head in such a way as to deceive the buffaloes. Thus dressed, he fixes himself at a convenient distance between a herd of buffaloes and any of the river precipices, which sometimes extend for some miles.

"His companions in the mean time get in the rear and side of the herd, and at a given signal show themselves, and advance towards the buffaloes. They instantly take alarm, and, finding the hunters beside them, they run toward the disguised Indian or decoy, who leads them on at full speed toward the river, when, suddenly securing himself in some crevice of the cliff which he had previously fixed on, the herd is left on the brink of the precipice; it is then in vain for the foremost to retreat or even to stop; they are pressed on by the hindmost rank, who, seeing no danger but from the hunters, goad on those before them till the whole are precipitated and the shore is strewed with their dead bodies. Sometimes in this perilous seduction the Indian is himself either trodden under foot by the rapid movements of the buffaloes, or, missing his footing in the cliff, is urged down the precipice by the falling herd. The Indians then select as much meat as they wish, and the rest is abandoned to the wolves, and creates a most dreadful stench."

Harper's Magazine, volume 38, page 147, contains the following from the pen of Theo. E. Davis, in an article entitled "The Buffalo Range:"

"As I have previously stated, the best hunting on the range is to be found between the Platte and Arkansas Rivers. Here I have seen the Indians have recourse to another method of slaughtering buffalo in a very easy, but to me a cruel way, for where one buffalo is killed several are sure to be painfully injured; but these, too, are soon killed by the Indians, who make haste to lance or shoot the cripples.

"The mode of hunting is somewhat as follows: A herd is discovered grazing on the table-lands. Being thoroughly acquainted with the country, the Indians are aware of the location of the nearest point where the table land is broken abruptly by a precipice which descends a hundred or more feet. Toward this 'devil-jump' the Indians head the herd, which is at once driven pell mell to and over the precipice. Meanwhile a number of Indians have taken their way by means of routes known to them, and succeed in reaching the cañon through which the crippled buffalo are running in all directions. These are quickly killed, so that out of a very considerable band of buffalo but few escape, many having been killed by the fall and others dispatched while limping off. This mode of hunting is sometimes indulged in by harum-scarum white men, but it is done more for deviltry than anything else. I have never known of its practice by army officers or persons who professed to hunt buffalo as a sport."

6. _Hunting on Snow-shoes._--"In the dead of the winters," says Mr. Catlin,[61] "which are very long and severely cold in this country, where horses can not be brought into the chase with any avail, the Indian runs upon the surface of the snow by aid of his snow-shoes, which buoy him up, while the great weight of the buffaloes sinks them down to the middle of their sides, and, completely stopping their progress, insures them certain and easy victims to the bow or lance of their pursuers. The snow in these regions often lies during the winter to the depth of 3 and 4 feet, being blown away from the tops and sides of the hills in many places, which are left bare for the buffaloes to graze upon, whilst it is drifted in the hollows and ravines to a very great depth, and rendered almost entirely impassable to these huge animals, which, when closely pursued by their enemies, endeavor to plunge through it, but are soon wedged in and almost unable to move, where they fall an easy prey to the Indian, who runs up lightly upon his snow-shoes and drives his lance to their hearts. The skins are then stripped off, to be sold to the fur traders, and the carcasses left to be devoured by the wolves. [Owing to the fact that the winter's supply of meat was procured and dried in the summer and fall months, the flesh of all buffalo killed in winter was allowed to become a total loss.] This is the season in which the greatest number of these animals are destroyed for their robes; they are most easily killed at this time, and their hair or fur, being longer and more abundant, gives greater value to the robe."

[Note 61: North American Indians, I, 253.]

* * * * *

III. PROGRESS OF THE EXTERMINATION.

A. THE PERIOD OF DESULTORY DESTRUCTION, FROM 1730 TO 1830.

The disappearance of the buffalo from all the country east of the Mississippi was one of the inevitable results of the advance of civilization. To the early pioneers who went forth into the wilderness to wrestle with nature for the necessities of life, this valuable animal might well have seemed a gift direct from the hand of Providence. During the first few years of the early settler's life in a new country, the few domestic animals he had brought with him were far too valuable to be killed for food, and for a long period he looked to the wild animals of the forest and the prairie for his daily supply of meat. The time was when no one stopped to think of the important part our game animals played in the settlement of this country, and even now no one has attempted to calculate the lessened degree of rapidity with which the star of empire would have taken its westward way without the bison, deer, elk, and antelope. The Western States and Territories pay little heed to the wanton slaughter of deer and elk now going on in their forests, but the time will soon come when the "grangers" will enter those regions and find the absence of game a very serious matter.

Although the bison was the first wild species to disappear before the advance of civilization, he served a good purpose at a highly critical period. His huge bulk of toothsome flesh fed many a hungry family, and his ample robe did good service in the settler's cabin and sleigh in winter weather. By the time game animals had become scarce, domestic herds and flocks had taken their place, and hunting became a pastime instead of a necessity.

As might be expected, from the time the bison was first seen by white men he has always been a conspicuous prize, and being the largest of the land quadrupeds, was naturally the first to disappear. Every man's hand has been against him. While his disappearance from the eastern United States was, in the main, due to the settler who killed game as a means of subsistence, there were a few who made the killing of those animals a regular business. This occurred almost exclusively in the immediate vicinity of salt springs, around which the bison congregated in great numbers, and made their wholesale slaughter of easy accomplishment. Mr. Thomas Ashe[62] has recorded some very interesting facts and observations on this point. In speaking of an old man who in the latter part of the last century built a log house for himself "on the immediate borders of a salt spring," in western Pennsylvania, for the purpose of killing buffaloes out of the immense droves which frequented that spot, Mr. Ashe says:

[Note 62: Travels in America in 1806. London, 1808.]

"In the first and second years this old man, with some companions, killed from six to seven hundred of these noble creatures merely for the sake of their skins, which to them were worth only 2 shillings each; and after this 'work of death' they were obliged to leave the place till the following season, or till the wolves, bears, panthers, eagles, rooks, ravens, etc., had devoured the carcasses and abandoned the place for other prey. In the two following years the same persons killed great numbers out of the first droves that arrived, skinned them, and left their bodies exposed to the sun and air; but they soon had reason to repent of this, for the remaining droves, as they came up in succession, stopped, gazed on the mangled and putrid bodies, sorrowfully moaned or furiously lowed aloud, and returned instantly to the wilderness in an unusual run, without tasting their favorite spring or licking the impregnated earth, which was also once their most agreeable occupation; nor did they nor any of their race ever revisit the neighborhood.

"The simple history of this spring is that of every other in the settled parts of this Western World; the carnage of beasts was everywhere the same. I met with a man who had killed two thousand buffaloes with his own hand, and others no doubt have done the same thing. In consequence of such proceedings not one buffalo is at this time to be found east of the Mississippi, except a few domesticated by the curious, or carried through the country on a public show."

But, fortunately, there is no evidence that such slaughter as that described by Mr. Ashe was at all common, and there is reason for the belief that until within the last forty years the buffalo was sacrificed in ways conducive to the greatest good of the greatest number.

From Coronado to General Frémont there has hardly been an explorer of United States territory who has not had occasion to bless the bison, and its great value to mankind can hardly be overestimated, although by many it can readily be forgotten.

The disappearance of the bison from the eastern United States was due to its consumption as food. It was very gradual, like the march of civilization, and, under the circumstances, absolutely inevitable. In a country so thickly peopled as this region speedily became, the mastodon could have survived extinction about as easily as the bison. Except when the latter became the victim of wholesale slaughter, there was little reason to bemoan his fate, save upon grounds that may be regarded purely sentimental. He served a most excellent purpose in the development of the country. Even as late as 1875 the farmers of eastern Kansas were in the habit of making trips every fall into the western part of that State for wagon loads of buffalo meat as a supply for the succeeding winter. The farmers of Texas, Nebraska, Dakota, and Minnesota also drew largely upon the buffalo as long as the supply lasted.

The extirpation of the bison west of the Rocky Mountains was due to legitimate hunting for food and clothing rather than for marketable peltries. In no part of that whole region was the species ever numerous, although in the mountains themselves, notably in Colorado, within easy reach of the great prairies on the east, vast numbers were seen by the early explorers and pioneers. But to the westward, away from the mountains, they were very rarely met with, and their total destruction in that region was a matter of easy accomplishment. According to Prof. J. A. Allen the complete disappearance of the bison west of the Rocky Mountains took place between 1838 and 1840.

B. THE PERIOD OF SYSTEMATIC SLAUGHTER, FROM 1830 TO 1838.

We come now to a history which I would gladly leave unwritten. Its record is a disgrace to the American people in general, and the Territorial, State, and General Government in particular. It will cause succeeding generations to regard us as being possessed of the leading characteristics of the savage and the beast of prey--cruelty and greed. We will be likened to the blood-thirsty tiger of the Indian jungle, who slaughters a dozen bullocks at once when he knows he can eat only one.

In one respect, at least, the white men who engaged in the systematic slaughter of the bison were savages just as much as the Piegan Indians, who would drive a whole herd over a precipice to secure a week's rations of meat for a single village. The men who killed buffaloes for their tongues and those who shot them from the railway trains for sport were murderers. In no way does civilized man so quickly revert to his former state as when he is alone with the beasts of the field. Give him a gun and something which he may kill without getting himself in trouble, and, presto! he is instantly a savage again, finding exquisite delight in bloodshed, slaughter, and death, if not for gain, then solely for the joy and happiness of it. There is no kind of warfare against game animals too unfair, too disreputable, or too mean for white men to engage in if they can only do so with safety to their own precious carcasses. They will shoot buffalo and antelope from running railway trains, drive deer into water with hounds and cut their throats in cold blood, kill does with fawns a week old, kill fawns by the score for their spotted skins, slaughter deer, moose, and caribou in the snow at a pitiful disadvantage, just as the wolves do; exterminate the wild ducks on the whole Atlantic seaboard with punt guns for the metropolitan markets; kill off the Rocky Mountain goats for hides worth only 50 cents apiece, destroy wagon loads of trout with dynamite, and so on to the end of the chapter.

Perhaps the most gigantic task ever undertaken on this continent in the line of game-slaughter was the extermination of the bison in the great pasture region by the hide-hunters. Probably the brilliant rapidity and success with which that lofty undertaking was accomplished was a matter of surprise even to those who participated in it. The story of the slaughter is by no means a long one.

The period of systematic slaughter of the bison naturally begins with the first organized efforts in that direction, in a business-like, wholesale way. Although the species had been steadily driven westward for a hundred years by the advancing settlements, and had during all that time been hunted for the meat and robes it yielded, its extermination did not begin in earnest until 1820, or thereabouts. As before stated, various persons had previous to that time made buffalo killing a business in order to sell their skins, but such instances were very exceptional. By that time the bison was totally extinct in all the region lying east of the Mississippi River except a portion of Wisconsin, where it survived until about 1830. In 1820 the first organized buffalo hunting expedition on a grand scale was made from the Red River settlement, Manitoba, in which five hundred and forty carts proceeded to the range. Previous to that time the buffaloes were found near enough to the settlements around Fort Garry that every settler could hunt independently; but as the herds were driven farther and farther away, it required an organized effort and a long journey to reach them.

The American Fur Company established trading posts along the Missouri River, one at the mouth of the Tetón River and another at the mouth of the Yellowstone. In 1826 a post was established at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, at the head of the Arkansas River, and in 1832 another was located in a corresponding situation at the head of the South Fork of the Platte, close to where Denver now stands. Both the latter were on what was then the western border of the buffalo range. Elsewhere throughout the buffalo country there were numerous other posts, always situated as near as possible to the best hunting ground, and at the same time where they would be most accessible to the hunters, both white and red.

As might be supposed, the Indians were encouraged to kill buffaloes for their robes, and this is what Mr. George Catlin wrote at the mouth of the Tetón River (Pyatt County, Dakota) in 1832 concerning this trade:[63]

"It seems hard and cruel (does it not?) that we civilized people, with all the luxuries and comforts of the world about us, should be drawing from the backs of these useful animals the skins for our luxury, leaving their carcasses to be devoured by the wolves; that we should draw from that country some one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand of their robes annually, the greater part of which are taken from animals that are killed expressly for the robe, at a season when the meat is not cured and preserved, and for each of which skins the Indian has received but a pint of whisky! Such is the fact, and that number, or near it, are annually destroyed, in addition to the number that is necessarily killed for the subsistence of three hundred thousand Indians, who live chiefly upon them."

The author further declared that the fur trade in those "great western realms" was then limited chiefly to the purchase of buffalo robes.

1. _The Red River half-breeds._--In June, 1840, when the Red River half-breeds assembled at Pembina for their annual expedition against the buffalo, they mustered as follows:

+-------------------------------------+ |Carts |1,210| +-------------------------+-----+-----+ |Hunters | 620| | +-------------------------+-----+ | |Women | 650|1,630| +-------------------------+-----+ | |Boys and girls | 360| | +-------------------------+-----+-----+ |Horses (buffalo runners) | 403| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Dogs | 542| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Cart horses | 655| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Draught oxen | 586| +-------------------------------+-----+ |Skinning knives |1,240| +-------------------------------------+

The total value of the property employed in this expedition and the working time occupied by it (two months) amounted to the enormous sum of £24,000.

[Note 63: North American Indians, I, p. 263.]

Although the bison formerly ranged to Fort Garry (near Winnipeg), they had been steadily killed off and driven back, and in 1840 none were found by the expedition until it was 250 miles from Pembina, which is situated on the Red River, at the international boundary. At that time the extinction of the species from the Red River to the Cheyenne was practically complete. The Red River settlers, aided, of course, by the Indians of that region, are responsible for the extermination of the bison throughout northeastern Dakota as far as the Cheyenne River, northern Minnesota, and the whole of what is now the province of Manitoba. More than that; as the game grew scarce and retired farther and farther, the half-breeds, who despised agriculture as long as there was a buffalo to kill, extended their hunting operations westward along the Qu'Appelle until they encroached upon the hunting-grounds of the Plain Crees, who lived in the Saskatchewan country.

Thus was an immense inroad made in the northern half of the herd which had previously covered the entire pasture region from the Great Slave Lake to central Texas. This was the first visible impression of the systematic killing which began in 1820. Up to 1840 it is reasonably certain, as will be seen by figures given elsewhere, that by this business-like method of the half-breeds, at least 652,000 buffaloes were destroyed by them alone.

Even as early as 1840 the Red River hunt was prosecuted through Dakota southwestwardly to the Missouri River and a short distance beyond it. Here it touched the wide strip of territory, bordering that stream, which was even then being regularly drained of its animal resources by the Indian hunters, who made the river their base of operations, and whose robes were shipped on its steam-boats.

It is certain that these annual Red River expeditions into Dakota were kept up as late as 1847, and as long thereafter as buffaloes were to be found in any number between the Cheyenne and the Missouri. At the same time, the White Horse Plains division, which hunted westward from Fort Garry, did its work of destruction quite as rapidly and as thoroughly as the rival expedition to the United States.

In 1857 the Plains Crees, inhabiting the country around the headwaters of the Qu'Appelle River (250 miles due west from Winnipeg), assembled in council, and "determined that in consequence of promises often made and broken by the white men and half-breeds, and the rapid destruction by them of the buffalo they fed on, they would not permit either white men or half-breeds to hunt in their country, or travel through it, except for the purpose of trading for their dried meat, pemmican, skins and robes."

In 1858 the Crees reported that between the two branches of the Saskatchewan buffalo were "very scarce." Professor Hind's expedition saw only one buffalo in the whole course of their journey from Winnipeg until they reached Sand Hill Lake, at the head of the Qu'Appelle, near the south branch of the Saskatchewan, where the first herd was encountered. Although the species was not totally extinct on the Qu'Appelle at that time, it was practically so.

2. _The country of the Sioux._--The next territory completely depopulated of buffaloes by systematic hunting was very nearly the entire southern half of Dakota, southwestern Minnesota, and northern Nebraska as far as the North Platte. This vast region, once the favorite range for hundreds of thousands of buffaloes, had for many years been the favorite hunting ground of the Sioux Indians of the Missouri, the Pawnees, Omahas, and all other tribes of that region. The settlement of Iowa and Minnesota presently forced into this region the entire body of Mississippi Sioux from the country west of Prairie du Chien and around Fort Snelling, and materially hastened the extermination of all the game animals which were once so abundant there. It is absolutely certain that if the Indians had been uninfluenced by the white traders, or, in other words, had not been induced to take and prepare a large number of robes every year for the market, the species would have survived very much longer than it did. But the demand quickly proved to be far greater than the supply. The Indians, of course, found it necessary to slaughter annually a great number of buffaloes for their own wants--for meat, robes, leather, teepees, etc. When it came to supplementing this necessary slaughter by an additional fifty thousand or more every year for marketable robes, it is no wonder that the improvident savages soon found, when too late, that the supply of buffaloes was not inexhaustible. Naturally enough, they attributed their disappearance to the white man, who was therefore a robber, and a proper subject for the scalping-knife. Apparently it never occurred to the minds of the Sioux that they themselves were equally to blame; it was always _the paleface_ who killed the buffaloes; and it was always _Sioux_ buffaloes that they killed. The Sioux seemed to feel that they held a chattel mortgage on all the buffaloes north of the Platte, and it required more than one pitched battle to convince them otherwise.

Up to the time when the great Sioux Reservation was established in Dakota (1875-'77), when 33,739 square miles of country, or nearly the whole southwest quarter of the Territory, was set aside for the exclusive occupancy of the Sioux, buffaloes were very numerous throughout that entire region. East of the Missouri River, which is the eastern boundary of the Sioux Reservation, from Bismarck all the way down, the species was practically extinct as early as 1870. But at the time when it became unlawful for white hunters to enter the territory of the Sioux nation there were tens of thousands of buffaloes upon it, and their subsequent slaughter is chargeable to the Indians alone, save as to those which migrated into the hunting grounds of the whites.

3. _Western railways, and their part in the extermination of the buffalo._--The building of a railroad means the speedy extermination of all the big game along its line. In its eagerness to attract the public and build up "a big business," every new line which traverses a country containing game does its utmost, by means of advertisements and posters, to attract the man with a gun. Its game resorts are all laid bare, and the market hunters and sportsmen swarm in immediately, slaying and to slay.

Within the last year the last real retreat for our finest game, the only remaining stronghold for the mountain sheep, goat, caribou, elk, and deer--northwestern Montana, northern Idaho, and thence westward--has been laid open to the very heart by the building of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway, which runs up the valley of the Milk River to Fort Assinniboine, and crosses the Rocky Mountains through Two Medicine Pass. Heretofore that region has been so difficult to reach that the game it contains has been measurably secure from general slaughter; but now it also must "go."

The marking out of the great overland trail by the Argonauts of '49 in their rush for the gold fields of California was the foreshadowing of the great east-and-west breach in the universal herd, which was made twenty years later by the first transcontinental railway.

The pioneers who "crossed the plains" in those days killed buffaloes for food whenever they could, and the constant harrying of those animals experienced along the line of travel, soon led them to retire from the proximity of such continual danger. It was undoubtedly due to this cause that the number seen by parties who crossed the plains in 1849 and subsequently, was surprisingly small. But, fortunately for the buffaloes, the pioneers who would gladly have halted and turned aside now and then for the excitement of the chase, were compelled to hurry on, and accomplish the long journey while good weather lasted. It was owing to this fact, and the scarcity of good horses, that the buffaloes found it necessary to retire only a few miles from the wagon route to get beyond the reach of those who would have gladly hunted them.

Mr. Allen Varner, of Indianola, Illinois, has kindly furnished me with the following facts in regard to the presence of the buffalo, as observed by him during his journey westward, over what was then known as the Oregon Trail.

"The old Oregon trail ran from Independence, Missouri, to old Fort Laramie, through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, and thence up to Salt Lake City. We left Independence on May C, 1849, and struck the Platte River at Grand Island. The trail had been traveled but very little previous to that year. We saw no buffaloes whatever until we reached the forks of the Platte, on May 20, or thereabouts. There we saw seventeen head. From that time on we saw small bunches now and then; never more than forty or fifty together. We saw no great herds anywhere, and I should say we did not see over five hundred head all told. The most western point at which we saw buffaloes was about due north of Laramie Peak, and it must have been about the 20th of June. We killed several head for meat during our trip, and found them all rather thin in flesh. Plainsmen who claimed to know, said that all the buffaloes we saw had wintered in that locality, and had not had time to get fat. The annual migration from the south had not yet begun, or rather had not yet brought any of the southern buffaloes that far north."

In a few years the tide of overland travel became so great, that the buffaloes learned to keep away from the dangers of the trail, and many a pioneer has crossed the plains without ever seeing a live buffalo.

4. _The division of the universal herd._--Until the building of the first transcontinental railway made it possible to market the "buffalo product," buffalo hunting as a business was almost wholly in the hands of the Indians. Even then, the slaughter so far exceeded the natural increase that the narrowing limits of the buffalo range was watched with anxiety, and the ultimate extinction of the species confidently predicted. Even without railroads the extermination of the race would have taken place eventually, but it would have been delayed perhaps twenty years. With a recklessness of the future that was not to be expected of savages, though perhaps perfectly natural to civilized white men, who place the possession of a dollar above everything else, the Indians with one accord singled out the _cows_ for slaughter, because their robes and their flesh better suited the fastidious taste of the noble redskin. The building of the Union Pacific Railway began at Omaha in 1865, and during that year 40 miles were constructed. The year following saw the completion of 265 miles more, and in 1867 245 miles were added, which brought it to Cheyenne. In 1868, 350 miles were built, and in 1869 the entire line was open to traffic.

In 1867, when Maj. J. W. Powell and Prof. A. H. Thompson crossed the plains by means of the Union Pacific Railway as far as it was constructed and thence onward by wagon, they saw during the entire trip only one live buffalo, a solitary old bull, wandering aimlessly along the south bank of the Platte River.

The completion of the Union Pacific Railway divided forever the buffaloes of the United States into two great herds, which thereafter became known respectively as the northern and southern herds. Both retired rapidly and permanently from the railway, and left a strip of country over 50 miles wide almost uninhabited by them. Although many thousand buffaloes were killed by hunters who made the Union Pacific Railway their base of operations, the two great bodies retired north and south so far that the greater number were beyond striking distance from that line.

5. _The destruction of the southern herd._--The geographical center of the great southern herd during the few years of its separate existence previous to its destruction was very near the present site of Garden City, Kansas. On the east, even as late as 1872, thousands of buffaloes ranged within 10 miles of Wichita, which was then the headquarters of a great number of buffalo-hunters, who plied their occupation vigorously during the winter. On the north the herd ranged within 25 miles of the Union Pacific, until the swarm of hunters coming down from the north drove them farther and farther south. On the west, a few small bands ranged as far as Pike's Peak and the South Park, but the main body ranged east of the town of Pueblo, Colorado. In the southwest, buffaloes were abundant as far as the Pecos and the Staked Plains, while the southern limit of the herd was about on a line with the southern boundary of New Mexico. Regarding this herd, Colonel Dodge writes as follows: "Their most prized feeding ground was the section of country between the South Platte and Arkansas rivers, watered by the Republican, Smoky, Walnut, Pawnee, and other parallel or tributary streams, and generally known as the Republican country. Hundreds of thousands went south from here each winter, but hundreds of thousands remained. It was the chosen home of the buffalo."

Although the range of the northern herd covered about twice as much territory as did the southern, the latter contained probably twice as many buffaloes. The number of individuals in the southern herd in the year 1871 must have been at least three millions, and most estimates place the total much higher than that.

During the years from 1866 to 1871, inclusive, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railway and what is now known as the Kansas Pacific, or Kansas division of the Union Pacific Railway, were constructed from the Missouri River westward across Kansas, and through the heart of the southern buffalo range. The southern herd was literally cut to pieces by railways, and every portion of its range rendered easily accessible. There had always been a market for buffalo robes at a fair price, and as soon as the railways crossed the buffalo country the slaughter began. The rush to the range was only surpassed by the rush to the gold mines of California in earlier years. The railroad builders, teamsters, fortune-seekers, "professional" hunters, trappers, guides, and every one out of a job turned out to hunt buffalo for hides and meat. The merchants who had already settled in all the little towns along the three great railways saw an opportunity to make money out of the buffalo product, and forthwith began to organize and supply hunting parties with arms, ammunition, and provisions, and send them to the range. An immense business of this kind was done by the merchants of Dodge City (Fort Dodge), Wichita, and Leavenworth, and scores of smaller towns did a corresponding amount of business in the same line. During the years 1871 to 1874 but little else was done in that country except buffalo killing. Central depots were established in the best buffalo country, from whence hunting parties operated in all directions. Buildings were erected for the curing of meat, and corrals were built in which to heap up the immense piles of buffalo skins that accumulated. At Dodge City, as late as 1878, Professor Thompson saw a lot of baled buffalo skins in a corral, the solid cubical contents of which he calculated to equal 120 cords.

At first the utmost wastefulness prevailed. Every one wanted to kill buffalo, and no one was willing to do the skinning and curing. Thousands upon thousands of buffaloes were killed for their tongues alone, and never skinned. Thousands more were wounded by unskillful marksmen and wandered off to die and become a total loss. But the climax of wastefulness and sloth was not reached until the enterprising buffalo-butcher began to skin his dead buffaloes by horse-power. The process is of interest, as showing the depth of degradation to which a man can fall and still call himself a hunter. The skin of the buffalo was ripped open along the belly and throat, the legs cut around at the knees, and ripped up the rest of the way. The skin of the neck was divided all the way around at the back of the head, and skinned back a few inches to afford a start. A stout iron bar, like a hitching post, was then driven through the skull and about 18 inches into the earth, after which a rope was tied very firmly to the thick skin of the neck, made ready for that purpose. The other end of this rope was then hitched to the whiffletree of a pair of horses, or to the rear axle of a wagon, the horses were whipped up, and the skin was forthwith either torn in two or torn off the buffalo with about 50 pounds of flesh adhering to it. It soon became apparent to even the most enterprising buffalo skinner that this method was not an unqualified success, and it was presently abandoned.

The slaughter which began in 1871 was prosecuted with great vigor and enterprise in 1872, and reached its heighten 1873. By that time, the buffalo country fairly swarmed with hunters, each, party putting forth its utmost efforts to destroy more buffaloes than its rivals. By that time experience had taught the value of thorough organization, and the butchering was done in a more business-like way. By a coincidence that proved fatal to the bison, it was just at the beginning of the slaughter that breech-loading, long-range rifles attained what was practically perfection. The Sharps 40-90 or 45-120, and the Remington were the favorite weapons of the buffalo-hunter, the former being the one in most general use. Before the leaden hail of thousands of these deadly breech-loaders the buffaloes went down at the rate of several thousand daily during the hunting season.

During the years 1871 and 1872 the most wanton wastefulness prevailed. Colonel Dodge declares that, though hundreds of thousands of skins were sent to market, they scarcely indicated the extent of the slaughter. Through want of skill in shooting and want of knowledge in preserving the hides of those slain by green hunters, _one hide sent to market represented three, four, or even five dead buffalo_. The skinners and curers knew so little of the proper mode of curing hides, that at least half of those actually taken were lost. In the summer and fall of 1872 one hide sent to market represented at least _three_ dead buffalo. This condition of affairs rapidly improved; but such was the furor for slaughter, and the ignorance of all concerned, that every hide sent to market in 1871 represented no less than _five_ dead buffalo.

By 1873 the condition of affairs had somewhat improved, through better organization of the hunting parties and knowledge gained by experience in curing. For all that, however, buffaloes were still so exceedingly plentiful, and shooting was so much easier than skinning, the latter was looked upon as a necessary evil and still slighted to such an extent that every hide actually sold and delivered represented two dead buffaloes.

In 1874 the slaughterers began to take alarm at the increasing scarcity of buffalo, and the skinners, having a much smaller number of dead animals to take care of than ever before, were able to devote more time to each subject and do their work properly. As a result, Colonel Dodge estimated that during 1874, and from that time on, one hundred skins delivered represented not more than one hundred and twenty-five dead buffaloes; but that "no parties have ever got the proportion lower than this."

The great southern herd was slaughtered by still-hunting, a method which has already been fully described. A typical hunting party is thus described by Colonel Dodge:[64]

"The most approved party consisted of four men--one shooter, two skinners, and one man to cook, stretch hides, and take care of camp. Where buffalo were very plentiful the number of skinners was increased. A light wagon, drawn by two horses or mules, takes the outfit into the wilderness, and brings into camp the skins taken each day. The outfit is most meager: a sack of flour, a side of bacon, 5 pounds of coffee, tea, and sugar, a little salt, and possibly a few beans, is a month's supply. A common or "A" tent furnishes shelter; a couple of blankets for each man is a bed. One or more of Sharps or Remington's heaviest sporting rifles, and an unlimited supply of ammunition, is the armament; while a coffee-pot, Dutch-oven, frying-pan, four tin plates, and four tin cups constitute the kitchen and table furniture.

"The skinning knives do duty at the platter, and 'fingers were made before forks.' Nor must be forgotten one or more 10-gallon kegs for water, as the camp may of necessity be far away from a stream. The supplies are generally furnished by the merchant for whom the party is working, who, in addition, pays each of the party a specified percentage of the value of the skins delivered. The shooter is carefully selected for his skill and knowledge of the habits of the buffalo. He is captain and leader of the party. When all is ready, he plunges into the wilderness, going to the center of the best buffalo region known to him, not already occupied (for there are unwritten regulations recognized as laws, giving to each hunter certain rights of discovery and occupancy). Arrived at the position, he makes his camp in some hidden ravine or thicket, and makes all ready for work."

[Note 64: Plains of the Great West, p. 134.]

Of course the slaughter was greatest along the lines of the three great railways--the Kansas Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, and the Union Pacific, about in the order named. It reached its height in the season of 1873. During that year the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad carried out of the buffalo country 251,443 robes, 1,017,600 pounds of meat, and 2,743,100 pounds of bones. The end of the southern herd was then near at hand. Could the southern buffalo range have been roofed over at that time it would have made one vast charnel-house. Putrifying carcasses, many of them with the hide still on, lay thickly scattered over thousands of square miles of the level prairie, poisoning the air and water and offending the sight. The remaining herds had become mere scattered bands, harried and driven hither and thither by the hunters, who now swarmed almost as thickly as the buffaloes. A cordon of camps was established along the Arkansas River, the South Platte, the Republican, and the few other streams that contained water, and when the thirsty animals came to drink they were attacked and driven away, and with the most fiendish persistency kept from slaking their thirst, so that they would again be compelled to seek the river and come within range of the deadly breech-loaders. Colonel Dodge declares that in places favorable to such warfare, as the south bank of the Platte, a herd of buffalo has, by shooting at it by day and by lighting fires and firing guns at night, been kept from water until it has been entirely destroyed. In the autumn of 1873, when Mr. William Blackmore traveled for some 30 or 40 miles along the north bank of the Arkansas River to the east of Port Dodge, "there was a continuous line of putrescent carcasses, so that the air was rendered pestilential and offensive to the last degree. The hunters had formed a line of camps along the banks of the river, and had shot down the buffalo, night and morning, as they came to drink. In order to give an idea of the number of these carcasses, it is only necessary to mention that I counted sixty-seven on one spot not covering 4 acres."

White hunters were not allowed to hunt in the Indian Territory, but the southern boundary of the State of Kansas was picketed by them, and a herd no sooner crossed the line going north than it was destroyed. Every water-hole was guarded by a camp of hunters, and whenever a thirsty herd approached, it was promptly met by rifle-bullets.

During this entire period the slaughter of buffaloes was universal. The man who desired buffalo meat for food almost invariably killed five times as many animals as he could utilize, and after cutting from each victim its very choicest parts--the _tongue alone_, possibly, or perhaps the hump and hind quarters, one or the other, or both--fully four-fifths of the really edible portion of the carcass would be left to the wolves. It was no uncommon thing for a man to bring in two barrels of salted buffalo tongues, without another pound of meat or a solitary robe. The tongues were purchased at 25 cents each and sold in the markets farther east at 50 cents. In those days of criminal wastefulness it was a very common thing for buffaloes to be slaughtered for their tongues alone. Mr. George Catlin[65] relates that a few days previous to his arrival at the mouth of the Tetón River (Dakota), in 1832, "an immense herd of buffaloes had showed themselves on the opposite side of the river," whereupon a party of five or six hundred Sioux Indians on horseback forded the river, attacked the herd, recrossed the river about sunset, and came into the fort with fourteen hundred fresh buffalo tongues, which were thrown down in a mass, and for which they required only a few gallons of whisky, which was soon consumed in "a little harmless carouse." Mr. Catlin states that from all that he could learn not a skin or a pound of meat, other than the tongues, was saved after this awful slaughter.

[Note 65: North American Indians, I, 256.]

Judging from all accounts, it is making a safe estimate to say that probably no fewer than fifty thousand buffaloes have been killed for their tongues alone, and the most of these are undoubtedly chargeable against white men, who ought to have known better.

A great deal has been said about the slaughter of buffaloes by foreign sportsmen, particularly Englishmen; but I must say that, from all that can be ascertained on this point, this element of destruction has been greatly exaggerated and overestimated. It is true that every English sportsman who visited this country in the days of the buffalo always resolved to have, and did have, "a buffalo hunt," and usually under the auspices of United States Army officers. Undoubtedly these parties did kill hundreds of buffaloes, but it is very doubtful whether the aggregate of the number slain by foreign sportsmen would run up higher than ten thousand. Indeed, for myself, I am well convinced that there are many old ex-still-hunters yet living, each of whom is accountable for a greater number of victims than all buffaloes killed by foreign sportsmen would make added together. The professional butchers were very much given to crying out against "them English lords," and holding up their hands in holy horror at buffaloes killed by them for their heads, instead of for hides to sell at a dollar apiece; but it is due the American public to say that all this outcry was received at its true value and deceived very few. By those in possession of the facts it was recognized as "a blind," to divert public opinion from the real culprits.

Nevertheless it is very true that many men who were properly classed as sportsmen, in contradistinction from the pot-hunters, did engage in useless and inexcusable slaughter to an extent that was highly reprehensible, to say the least. A sportsman is not supposed to kill game wantonly, when it can be of no possible use to himself or any one else, but a great many do it for all that. Indeed, the sportsman who kills sparingly and conscientiously is rather the exception than the rule. Colonel Dodge thus refers to the work of some foreign sportsmen:

"In the fall of that year [1872] three English gentlemen went out with me for a short hunt, and in their excitement bagged more buffalo than would have supplied a brigade." As a general thing, however, the professional sportsmen who went out to have a buffalo hunt for the excitement of the chase and the trophies it yielded, nearly always found the bison so easy a victim, and one whose capture brought so little glory to the hunter, that the chase was voted very disappointing, and soon abandoned in favor of nobler game. In those days there was no more to boast of in killing a buffalo than in the assassination of a Texas steer.