The Extermination of the American Bison

Albinism.—Cases of albinism in the buffalo were of extremely rare occurrence.I have met many old buffalo hunters, who had killed thousands and seen scores of thousands of buffaloes, yet never had seen a white one.From all accounts it appears that not over ten or eleven white buffaloes, or white buffalo skins, were ever seen by white men.Pied individuals were occasionally obtained, but even they were rare.Albino buffaloes were always so highly prized that not a single one, so far as I can learn, ever had the good fortune to attain adult size, their appearance being so striking, in contrast with the other members of the herd, as to draw upon them an unusual number of enemies, and cause their speedy destruction.

At the New Orleans Exposition, in 1884-’85, the Territory of Dakota exhibited, amongst other Western quadrupeds, the mounted skin of a two-year-old buffalo which might fairly be called an albino.Although not really white, it was of a uniform dirty cream-color, and showed not a trace of the bison’s normal color on any part of its body.

Lieut.Col.S.C.Kellogg, U.S.Army, has on deposit in the National Museum a tanned skin which is said to have come from a buffalo.It is from an animal about one year old, and the hair upon it, which is short, very curly or wavy, and rather coarse, is pure white.In length and texture the hair does not in any one respect resemble the hair of a yearling buffalo save in one particular,—along the median line of the neck and hump there is a rather long, thin mane of hair, which has the peculiar woolly appearance of genuine buffalo hair on those parts.On the shoulder portions of the skin the hair is as short as on the hind quarters.I am inclined to believe this rather remarkable specimen came from a wild half-breed calf, the result of a cross between a white domestic cow and a buffalo bull.At one time it was by no means uncommon for small bunches of domestic cattle to enter herds of buffalo and remain there permanently.

I have been informed that the late General Marcy possessed a white buffalo skin. If it is still in existence, and is really white, it is to be hoped that so great a rarity may find a permanent abiding place in some museum where the remains of Bison americanus are properly appreciated.

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V.The Habits of the Buffalo.

The history of the buffalo’s daily life and habits should begin with the “running season.”This period occupied the months of August and September, and was characterized by a degree of excitement and activity throughout the entire herd quite foreign to the ease-loving and even slothful nature which was so noticeable a feature of the bison’s character at all other times.

The mating season occurred when the herd was on its summer range.The spring calves were from two to four months old.Through continued feasting on the new crop of buffalo-grass and bunch-grass—the most nutritious in the world, perhaps—every buffalo in the herd had grown round-sided, fat, and vigorous.The faded and weather-beaten suit of winter hair had by that time fallen off and given place to the new coat of dark gray and black, and, excepting for the shortness of his hair, the buffalo was in prime condition.

During the “running season,” as it was called by the plainsmen, the whole nature of the herd was completely changed. Instead of being broken up into countless small groups and dispersed over a vast extent of territory, the herd came together in a dense and confused mass of many thousand individuals, so closely congregated as to actually blacken the face of the landscape. As if by a general and irresistible impulse, every straggler would be drawn to the common center, and for miles on every side of the great herd the country would be found entirely deserted.

At this time the herd itself became a seething mass of activity and excitement.As usual under such conditions, the bulls were half the time chasing the cows, and fighting each other during the other half.These actual combats, which were always of short duration and over in a few seconds after the actual collision took place, were preceded by the usual threatening demonstrations, in which the bull lowers his head until his nose almost touches the ground, roars like a fog-horn until the earth seems to fairly tremble with the vibration, glares madly upon his adversary with half-white eyeballs, and with his forefeet paws up the dry earth and throws it upward in a great cloud of dust high above his back.At such times the mingled roaring—it can not truthfully be described as lowing or bellowing—of a number of huge bulls unite and form a great volume of sound like distant thunder, which has often been heard at a distance of from 1 to 3 miles.I have even been assured by old plainsmen that under favorable atmospheric conditions such sounds have been heard five miles.

Notwithstanding the extreme frequency of combats between the bulls during this season, their results were nearly always harmless, thanks to the thickness of the hair and hide on the head and shoulders, and the strength of the neck.

Under no conditions was there ever any such thing as the pairing off or mating of male and female buffaloes for any length of time.In the entire process of reproduction the bison’s habits were similar to those of domestic cattle.For years the opinion was held by many, in some cases based on misinterpreted observations, that in the herd the identity of each family was partially preserved, and that each old bull maintained an individual harem and group of progeny of his own.The observations of Colonel Dodge completely disprove this very interesting theory; for at best it was only a picturesque fancy, ascribing to the bison a degree of intelligence which he never possessed.

At the close of the breeding season the herd quickly settles down to its normal condition.The mass gradually resolves itself into the numerous bands or herdlets of from twenty to a hundred individuals, so characteristic of bison on their feeding grounds, and these gradually scatter in search of the best grass until the herd covers many square miles of country.

In his search for grass the buffalo displayed but little intelligence or power of original thought. Instead of closely following the divides between water courses where the soil was best and grass most abundant, he would not hesitate to wander away from good feeding-grounds into barren “bad lands,” covered with sage-brush, where the grass was very thin and very poor. In such broken country as Montana, Wyoming, and southwestern Dakota, the herds, on reaching the best grazing grounds on the divides, would graze there day after day until increasing thirst compelled them to seek for water.Then, actuated by a common impulse, the search for a water-hole was begun in a business-like way.The leader of a herd, or “bunch,” which post was usually filled by an old cow, would start off down the nearest “draw,” or stream-heading, and all the rest would fall into line and follow her.From the moment this start was made there was no more feeding, save as a mouthful of grass could be snatched now and then without turning aside.In single file, in a line sometimes half a mile long and containing between one and two hundred buffaloes, the procession slowly marched down the coulée, close alongside the gully as soon as the water-course began to cut a pathway for itself.When the gully curved to right or left the leader would cross its bed and keep straight on until the narrow ditch completed its wayward curve and came back to the middle of the coulée.The trail of a herd in search of water is usually as good a piece of engineering as could be executed by the best railway surveyor, and is governed by precisely the same principles.It always follows the level of the valley, swerves around the high points, and crosses the stream repeatedly in order to avoid climbing up from the level.The same trail is used again and again by different herds until the narrow path, not over a foot in width, is gradually cut straight down into the soil to a depth of several inches, as if it had been done by a 12-inch grooving-plane.By the time the trail has been worn down to a depth of 6 or 7 inches, without having its width increased in the least, it is no longer a pleasant path to walk in, being too much like a narrow ditch.Then the buffaloes abandon it and strike out a new one alongside, which is used until it also is worn down and abandoned.

To day the old buffalo trails are conspicuous among the very few classes of objects which remain as a reminder of a vanished race.The herds of cattle now follow them in single file just as the buffaloes did a few years ago, as they search for water in the same way.In some parts of the West, in certain situations, old buffalo trails exist which the wild herds wore down to a depth of 2 feet or more.

Mile after mile marched the herd, straight down-stream, bound for the upper water-hole. As the hot summer drew on, the pools would dry up one by one, those nearest the source being the first to disappear. Toward the latter part of summer, the journey for water was often a long one. Hole after hole would be passed without finding a drop of water. At last a hole of mud would be found, below that a hole with a little muddy water, and a mile farther on the leader would arrive at a shallow pool under the edge of a “cut bank,” a white, snow-like deposit of alkali on the sand encircling its margin, and incrusting the blades of grass and rushed that grew up from the bottom. The damp earth around the pool was cut up by a thousand hoof-prints, and the water was warm, strongly impregnated with alkali, and yellow with animal impurities, but it was water. The nauseous mixture was quickly surrounded by a throng of thirsty, heated, and eager buffaloes of all ages, to which the oldest and strongest asserted claims of priority.There was much crowding and some fighting, but eventually all were satisfied.After such a long journey to water, a herd would usually remain by it for some hours, lying down, resting, and drinking at intervals until completely satisfied.

Having drunk its fill, the herd would never march directly back to the choice feeding grounds it had just left, but instead would leisurely stroll off at a right angle from the course it came, cropping for awhile the rich bunch grasses of the bottom-lands, and then wander across the hills in an almost aimless search for fresh fields and pastures new.When buffaloes remained long in a certain locality it was a common thing for them to visit the same watering-place a number of times, at intervals of greater or less duration, according to circumstances.

When undisturbed on his chosen range, the bison used to be fond of lying down for an hour or two in the middle of the day, particularly when fine weather and good grass combined to encourage him in luxurious habits.I once discovered with the field glass a small herd of buffaloes lying down at midday on the slope of a high ridge, and having ridden hard for several hours we seized the opportunity to unsaddle and give our horses an hour’s rest before making the attack.While we were so doing, the herd got up, shifted its position to the opposite side of the ridge, and again laid down, every buffalo with his nose pointing to windward.

Old hunters declare that in the days of their abundance, when feeding on their ranges in fancied security, the younger animals were as playful as well-fed domestic calves.It was a common thing to see them cavort and frisk around with about as much grace as young elephants, prancing and running to and fro with tails held high in air “like scorpions.”

Buffaloes are very fond of rolling in dry dirt or even in mud, and this habit is quite strong in captive animals.Not only is it indulged in during the shedding season, but all through the fall and winter.The two live buffaloes in the National Museum are so much given to rolling, even in rainy weather, that it is necessary to card them every few days to keep them presentable.

Bulls are much more given to rolling than the cows, especially after they have reached maturity.They stretch out at full length, rub their heads violently to and fro on the ground, in which the horn serves as the chief point of contact and slides over the ground like a sled-runner.After thoroughly scratching one side on mother earth they roll over and treat the other in like manner.Notwithstanding his sharp and lofty hump, a buffalo bull can roll completely over with as much ease as any horse.

The vast amount of rolling and side-scratching on the earth indulged in by bull buffaloes is shown in the worn condition of the horns of every old specimen.Often a thickness of half an inch is gone from the upper half of each horn on its outside curve, at which point the horn is worn quite flat.This is well illustrated in the horns shown in the accompanying plate, fig.6.

Development of the Horns of the American Bison.
1. The Calf. 2. The Yearling. 3. Spike Bull, 2 years old.
4. Spike Bull, 3 years old. 5. Bull, 4 years old.
6. Bull, 11 years old. 7. Old "stub-horn" Bull, 20 years old.

Mr. Catlin[36] affords some very interesting and valuable information in regard to the bison’s propensity for wollowing in mad, and also the origin of the “fairy circles,” which have caused so much speculation amongst travelers:

“In the heat of summer, these huge animals, which no doubt suffer very much with the great profusion of their long and shaggy hair, or fur, often graze on the low grounds of the prairies, where there is a little stagnant water lying amongst the grass, and the ground underneath being saturated with it, is soft, into which the enormous bull, lowered down upon one knee, will plunge his horns, and at last his head, driving up the earth, and soon making an excavation in the ground into which the water filters from amongst the grass, forming for him in a few moments a cool and comfortable bath, into which he plunges like a hog in his mire.

“In this delectable laver he throws himself flat upon his side, and forcing himself violently around, with his horns and his huge hump on his shoulders presented to the sides, he ploughs up the ground by his rotary motion, sinking himself deeper and deeper in the ground, continually enlarging his pool, in which he at length becomes nearly immersed, and the water and mud about him mixed into a complete mortar, which changes his color and drips in streams from every part of him as he rises up upon his feet, a hideous monster of mud and ugliness, too frightful and too eccentric to be described!

“It is generally the leader of the herd that takes upon him to make this excavation, and if not (but another one opens the ground), the leader (who is conqueror) marches forward, and driving the other from it plunges himself into it; and, having cooled his sides and changed his color to a walking mass of mud and mortar, he stands in the pool until inclination induces him to step out and give place to the next in command who stands ready, and another, and another, who advance forward in their turns to enjoy the luxury of the wallow, until the whole band (sometimes a hundred or more) will pass through it in turn,[37] each one throwing his body around in a similar manner and each one adding a little to the dimensions of the pool, while he carries away in his hair an equal share of the clay, which dries to a gray or whitish color and gradually falls off. By this operation, which is done perhaps in the space of half an hour, a circular excavation of fifteen or twenty feet in diameter and two feet in depth is completed and left for the water to run into, which soon fills it to the level of the ground.

“To these sinks, the waters lying on the surface of the prairies are continually draining and in them lodging their vegetable deposits, which after a lapse of years fill them up to the surface with a rich soil, which throws up an unusual growth of grass and herbage, forming conspicuous circles, which arrest the eye of the traveler and are calculated to excite his surprise for ages to come.”

During the latter part of the last century, when the bison inhabited Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the salt springs of those States were resorted to by thousands of those animals, who drank of the saline waters and licked the impregnated earth.Mr. Thomas Ashe[38] affords us a most interesting account, from the testimony of an eye witness, of the behavior of a bison at a salt spring. The description refers to a locality in western Pennsylvania, where “an old man, one of the first settlers of this country, built his log house on the immediate borders of a salt spring. He informed me that for the first several seasons the buffaloes paid him their visits with the utmost regularity; they traveled in single files, always following each other at equal distances, forming droves, on their arrival, of about 300 each.

“The first and second years, so unacquainted were these poor brutes with the use of this man’s house or with his nature, that in a few hours they rubbed the house completely down, taking delight in turning the logs off with their horns, while he had some difficulty to escape from being trampled under their feet or crushed to death in his own ruins. At that period he supposed there could not have been less than 2,000 in the neighborhood of the spring. They sought for no manner of food, but only bathed and drank three or four times a day and rolled in the earth, or reposed with their flanks distended in the adjacent shades; and on the fifth and sixth days separated into distinct droves, bathed, drank, and departed in single files, according to the exact order of their arrival. They all rolled successively in the same hole, and each thus carried away a coat of mud to preserve the moisture on their skin and which, when hardened and baked in the sun, would resist the stings of millions of insects that otherwise would persecute these peaceful travelers to madness or even death.”

It was a fixed habit with the great buffalo herds to move southward from 200 to 400 miles at the approach of winter. Sometimes this movement was accomplished quietly and without any excitement, but at other times it was done with a rush, in which considerable distances would be gone over on the double quick. The advance of a herd was often very much like that of a big army, in a straggling line, from four to ten animals abreast. Sometimes the herd moved forward in a dense mass, and in consequence often came to grief in quicksands, alkali bogs, muddy crossings, and on treacherous ice. In such places thousands of buffaloes lost their lives, through those in the lead being forced into danger by pressure of the mass coming behind. In this manner, in the summer of 1867, over two thousand buffaloes, out of a herd of about four thousand, lost their lives in the quicksands of the Platte River, near Plum Creek, while attempting to cross.One winter, a herd of nearly a hundred buffaloes attempted to cross a lake called Lac-qui-parle, in Minnesota, upon the ice, which gave way, and drowned the entire herd.During the days of the buffalo it was a common thing for voyagers on the Missouri River to see buffaloes hopelessly mired in the quicksands or mud along the shore, either dead or dying, and to find their dead bodies floating down the river, or lodged on the upper ends of the islands and sand-bars.

Such accidents as these: it may be repeated, were due to the great number of animals and the momentum of the moving mass.The forced marches of the great herds were like the flight of a routed army, in which helpless individuals were thrust into mortal peril by the irresistible force of the mass coming behind, which rushes blindly on after their leaders.In this way it was possible to decoy a herd toward a precipice and cause it to plunge over en masse, the leaders being thrust over by their followers, and all the rest following of their own free will, like the sheep who cheerfully leaped, one after another, through a hole in the side of a high bridge because their bell-wether did so.

But it is not to be understood that the movement of a great herd, because it was made on a run, necessarily partook of the nature of a stampede in which a herd sweeps forward in a body.The most graphic account that I ever obtained of facts bearing on this point was furnished by Mr. James McNaney, drawn from his experience on the northern buffalo range in 1882.His party reached the range (on Beaver Creek, about 100 miles south of Glendive) about the middle of November, and found buffaloes already there; in fact they had begun to arrive from the north as early as the middle of October.About the first of December an immense herd arrived from the north.It reached their vicinity one night, about 10 o’clock, in a mass that seemed to spread everywhere.As the hunters sat in their tents, loading cartridges and cleaning their rifles, a low rumble was heard, which gradually increased to “a thundering noise,” and some one exclaimed, “There!that’s a big herd of buffalo coming in!”All ran out immediately, and hallooed and discharged rifles to keep the buffaloes from running over their tents.Fortunately, the horses were picketed some distance away in a grassy coulée, which the buffaloes did not enter.The herd came at a jog trot, and moved quite rapidly.“In the morning the whole country was black with buffalo.”It was estimated that 10,000 head were in sight.One immense detachment went down on to a “flat” and laid down.There it remained quietly, enjoying a long rest, for about ten days.It gradually broke up into small bands, which strolled off in various directions looking for food, and which the hunters quietly attacked.

A still more striking event occurred about Christmas time at the same place. For a few days the neighborhood of McNaney’s camp had been entirely deserted by buffaloes, not even one remaining.But one morning about daybreak a great herd which was traveling south began to pass their camp.A long line of moving forms was seen advancing rapidly from the northwest, coming in the direction of the hunters’ camp.It disappeared in the creek valley for a few moments, and presently the leaders suddenly came in sight again at the top of “a rise” a few hundred yards away, and came down the intervening slope at full speed, within 50 yards of the two tents.After them came a living stream of followers, all going at a gallop, described by the observer as “a long lope,” from four to ten buffaloes abreast.Sometimes there would be a break in the column of a minute’s duration, then more buffaloes would appear at the brow of the hill, and the column went rushing by as before.The calves ran with their mothers, and the young stock got over the ground with much less exertion than the older animals.For about four hours, or until past 11 o’clock, did this column of buffaloes gallop past the camp over a course no wider than a village street.Three miles away toward the south the long dark line of bobbing humps and hind quarters wound to the right between two hills and disappeared.True to their instincts, the hunters promptly brought out their rifles, and began to fire at the buffaloes as they ran.A furious fusilade was kept up from the very doors of the tents, and from first to last over fifty buffaloes were killed.Some fell headlong the instant they were hit, but the greater number ran on until their mortal wounds compelled them to halt, draw off a little way to one side, and finally fall in their death struggles.

Mr. McNaney stated that the hunters estimated the number of buffaloes on that portion of the range that winter (1881-’82) at 100,000.

It is probable, and in fact reasonably certain, that such forced-march migrations as the above were due to snow-covered pastures and a scarcity of food on the more northern ranges.Having learned that a journey south will bring him to regions of less snow and more grass, it is but natural that so lusty a traveler should migrate.The herds or bands which started south in the fall months traveled more leisurely, with frequent halts to graze on rich pastures.The advance was on a very different plan, taking place in straggling lines and small groups dispersed over quite a scope of country.

Unless closely pursued, the buffalo never chose to make a journey of several miles through hilly country on a continuous run. Even when fleeing from the attack of a hunter, I have often had occasion to notice that, if the hunter was a mile behind, the buffalo would always walk when going uphill; but as soon as the crest was gained he would begin to run, and go down the slope either at a gallop or a swift trot. In former times, when the buffalo’s world was wide, when retreating from an attack he always ran against the wind, to avoid running upon a new danger, which showed that he depended more upon his sense of smell than his eye-sight. During the last years of his existence, however, this habit almost totally disappeared, and the harried survivors learned to run for the regions which offered the greatest safety.But even to-day, if a Texas hunter should go into the Staked Plains, and descry in the distance a body of animals running against the wind, he would, without a moment’s hesitation, pronounce them buffaloes, and the chances are that he would be right.

In winter the buffalo used to face the storms, instead of turning tail and “drifting” before them helplessly, as domestic cattle do.But at the same time, when beset by a blizzard, he would wisely seek shelter from it in some narrow and deep valley or system of ravines.There the herd would lie down and wait patiently for the storm to cease.After a heavy fall of snow, the place to find the buffalo was in the flats and creek bottoms, where the tall, rank bunch-grasses showed their tops above the snow, and afforded the best and almost the only food obtainable.

When the snow-fall was unusually heavy, and lay for a long time on the ground, the buffalo was forced to fast for days together, and sometimes even weeks.If a warm day came, and thawed the upper surface of the snow sufficiently for succeeding cold to freeze it into a crust, the outlook for the bison began to be serious.A man can travel over a crust through which the hoofs of a ponderous bison cut like chisels and leave him floundering belly-deep.It was at such times that the Indians hunted him on snow-shoes, and drove their spears into his vitals as he wallowed helplessly in the drifts.Then the wolves grew fat upon the victims which they, also, slaughtered almost without effort.

Although buffaloes did not often actually perish from hunger and cold during the severest winters (save in a few very exceptional cases), they often came out in very poor condition.The old bulls always suffered more severely than the rest, and at the end of winter were frequently in miserable plight.

Unlike most other terrestrial quadrupeds of America, so long as he could roam at will the buffalo had settled migratory habits.[39] While the elk and black-tail deer change their altitude twice a year, in conformity with the approach and disappearance of winter, the buffalo makes a radical change of latitude. This was most noticeable in the great western pasture region, where the herds were most numerous and their movements most easily observed.

At the approach of winter the whole great system of herds which ranged from the Peace River to the Indian Territory moved south a few hundred miles, and wintered under more favorable circumstances than each band would have experienced at its farthest north.Thus it happened that nearly the whole of the great range south of the Saskatchewan was occupied by buffaloes even in winter.

The movement north began with the return of mild weather in the early spring.Undoubtedly this northward migration was to escape the heat of their southern winter range rather than to find better pasture; for as a grazing country for cattle all the year round, Texas is hardly surpassed, except where it is overstocked.It was with the buffaloes a matter of choice rather than necessity which sent them on their annual pilgrimage northward.

Col.R.I.Dodge, who has made many valuable observations on the migratory habits of the southern buffaloes, has recorded the following:[40]

“Early in spring, as soon as the dry and apparently desert prairie had begun to change its coat of dingy brown to one of palest green, the horizon would begin to be dotted with buffalo, single or in groups of two or three, forerunners of the coming herd.Thicker and thicker and in larger groups they come, until by the time the grass is well up the whole vast landscape appears a mass of buffalo, some individuals feeding, others standing, others lying down, but the herd moving slowly, moving constantly to the northward.* * * Some years, as in 1871, the buffalo appeared to move northward in one immense column oftentimes from 20 to 50 miles in width, and of unknown depth from front to rear.Other years the northward journey was made in several parallel columns, moving at the same rate, and with their numerous flankers covering a width of a hundred or more miles.

“The line of march of this great spring migration was not always the same, though it was confined within certain limits.I am informed by old frontiersmen that it has not within twenty-five years crossed the Arkansas River east of Great Bend nor west of Big Sand Creek.The most favored routes crossed the Arkansas at the mouth of Walnut Creek, Pawnee Fork, Mulberry Creek, the Cimarron Crossing, and Big Sand Creek.

“As the great herd proceeds northward it is constantly depleted, numbers wandering off to the right and left, until finally it is scattered in small herds far and wide over the vast feeding grounds, where they pass the summer.

“When the food in one locality fails they go to another, and towards fall, when the grass of the high prairie becomes parched by the heat and drought, they gradually work their way back to the south, concentrating on the rich pastures of Texas and the Indian Territory, whence, the same instinct acting on all, they are ready to start together on the northward march as soon as spring starts the grass.”

So long as the bison held undisputed possession of the great plains his migratory habits were as above—regular, general, and on a scale that was truly grand.The herds that wintered in Texas, the Indian Territory, and New Mexico probably spent their summers in Nebraska, southwestern Dakota, and Wyoming.The winter herds of northern Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and southern Dakota went to northern Dakota and Montana, while the great Montana herds spent the summer on the Grand Coteau des Prairies lying between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri.The two great annual expeditions of the Red River half-breeds, which always took place in summer, went in two directions from Winnipeg and Pembina—one, the White Horse Plain division, going westward along the Qu’Appelle to the Saskatchewan country, and the other, the Red River division, southwest into Dakota.In 1840 the site of the present city of Jamestown, Dakota, was the northeastern limit of the herds that summered in Dakota, and the country lying between that point and the Missouri was for years the favorite hunting ground of the Red River division.

The herds which wintered on the Montana ranges always went north in the early spring, usually in March, so that during the time the hunters were hauling in the hides taken on the winter hunt the ranges were entirely deserted.It is equally certain, however, that a few small bauds remained in certain portions of Montana throughout the summer.But the main body crossed the international boundary, and spent the summer on the plains of the Saskatchewan, where they were hunted by the half-breeds from the Red River settlements and the Indians of the plains.It is my belief that in this movement nearly all the buffaloes of Montana and Dakota participated, and that the herds which spent the summer in Dakota, where they were annually hunted by the Red River half-breeds, came up from Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska.

While most of the calves were born on the summer ranges, many were brought forth en route. It was the habit of the cows to retire to a secluded spot, if possible a ravine well screened from observation, bring forth their young, and nourish and defend them until they were strong enough to join the herd. Calves were born all the time from March to July, and sometimes even as late as August. On the summer ranges it was the habit of the cows to leave the bulls at calving time, and thus it often happened that small herds were often seen composed of bulls only. Usually the cow produced but one calf, but twins were not uncommon. Of course many calves were brought forth in the herd, but the favorite habit of the cow was as stated. As soon as the young calves were brought into the herd, which for prudential reasons occurred at the earliest possible moment, the bulls assumed the duty of protecting them from the wolves which at all times congregated in the vicinity of a herd, watching for an opportunity to seize a calf or a wounded buffalo which might be left behind. A calf always follows its mother until its successor is appointed and installed, unless separated from her by force of circumstances.They suck until they are nine months old, or even older, and Mr. McNaney once saw a lusty calf suck its mother (in January) on the Montana range several hours after she had been killed for her skin.

When a buffalo is wounded it leaves the herd immediately and goes off as far from the line of pursuit as it can get, to escape the rabble of hunters, who are sure to follow the main body.If any deep ravines are at hand the wounded animal limps away to the bottom of the deepest and most secluded one, and gradually works his way up to its very head, where he finds himself in a perfect cul-de-sac, barely wide enough to admit him.Here he is so completely hidden by the high walls and numerous bends that his pursuer must needs come within a few feet of his horns before his huge bulk is visible.I have more than once been astonished at the real impregnability of the retreats selected by wounded bison.In following up wounded bulls in ravine headings it always became too dangerous to make the last stage of the pursuit on horseback, for fear of being caught in a passage so narrow as to insure a fatal accident to man or horse in case of a sudden discovery of the quarry.I have seen wounded bison shelter in situations where a single bull could easily defend himself from a whole pack of wolves, being completely walled in on both sides and the rear, and leaving his foes no point of attack save his head and horns.

Bison which were nursing serious wounds most often have gone many days at a time without either food or water, and in this connection it may be mentioned that the recuperative power of a bison is really wonderful.Judging from the number of old leg wounds, fully healed, which I have found in freshly killed bisons, one may be tempted to believe that a bison never died of a broken leg.One large bull which I skeletonized had had his humerus shot squarely in two, but it had united again more firmly than ever.Another large bull had the head of his left femur and the hip socket shattered completely to pieces by a big ball, but he had entirely recovered from it, and was as lusty a runner as any bull we chased.We found that while a broken leg was a misfortune to a buffalo, it always took something more serious than that to stop him.

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VI.The Food of the Bison.

It is obviously impossible to enumerate all the grasses which served the bison as food on his native heath without presenting a complete list of all the plants of that order found in a given region; but it is at least desirable to know which of the grasses of the great pasture region were his favorite and most common food. It was the nutritious character and marvelous abundance of his food supply which enabled the bison to exist in such absolutely countless numbers as characterized his occupancy of the great plains. The following list comprises the grasses which were the bison’s principal food, named in the order of their importance:

Bouteloua oligostachya (buffalo, grama, or mesquite grass). —This remarkable grass formed the pièce de résistance of the bison’s bill of fare in the days when he flourished, and it now comes to us daily in the form of beef produced of primest quality and in greatest quantity on what was until recently the great buffalo range. This grass is the most abundant and widely distributed species to be found in the great pasture region between the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and the nineteenth degree of west longitude. It is the principal grass of the plains from Texas to the British Possessions, and even in the latter territory it is quite conspicuous. To any one but a botanist its first acquaintance means a surprise. Its name and fame lead the unacquainted to expect a grass which is tall, rank, and full of “fodder,” like the “blue joint” (Andropogon provincialis).The grama grass is very short, the leaves being usually not more than 2 or 3 inches in length and crowded together at the base of the stems. The flower stalk is about a foot in height, but on grazed lands are eaten off and but seldom seen.The leaves are narrow and inclined to curl, and lie close to the ground.Instead of developing a continuous growth, this grass grows in small, irregular patches, usually about the size of a man’s hand, with narrow strips of perfectly bare ground between them.The grass curls closely upon the ground, in a woolly carpet or cushion, greatly resembling a layer of Florida moss.Even in spring-time it never shows more color than a tint of palest green, and the landscape which is dependent upon this grass for color is never more than “a gray and melancholy waste.”Unlike the soft, juicy, and succulent grasses of the well-watered portions of the United States, the tiny leaves of the grama grass are hard, stiff, and dry.I have often noticed that in grazing neither cattle nor horses are able to bite off the blades, but instead each leaf is pulled out of the tuft, seemingly by its root.

Notwithstanding its dry and uninviting appearance, this grass is highly nutritious, and its fat-producing qualities are unexcelled.The heat of summer dries it up effectually without destroying its nutritive elements, and it becomes for the remainder of the year excellent hay, cured on its own roots.It affords good grazing all the year round, save in winter, when it is covered with snow, and even then, if the snow is not too deep, the buffaloes, cattle, and horses paw down through it to reach the grass, or else repair to wind-swept ridges and hill-tops, where the snow has been blown off and left the grass partly exposed.Stock prefer it to all the other grasses of the plains.

On bottom-lands, where moisture is abundant, this grass develops much more luxuriantly, growing in a close mass, and often to a height of a foot or more, if not grazed down, when it is cut for hay, and sometimes yields 1½ tons to the acre.In Montana and the north it is generally known as “buffalo-grass,” a name to which it would seem to be fully entitled, notwithstanding the fact that this name is also applied, and quite generally, to another species, the next to be noticed.

Buchloë dactyloides (Southern buffalo-grass). —This species is next in value and extent of distribution to the grama grass. It also is found all over the great plains south of Nebraska and southern Wyoming, but not further north, although in many localities it occurs so sparsely as to be of little account. A single bunch of it very greatly resembles Bouteloua oligostachya, but its general growth is very different.It is very short, its general mass seldom rising more than 3 inches above the ground.It grows in extensive patches, and spreads by means of stolons, which sometimes are 2 feet in length, with joints every 3 or 4 inches.Owing to its southern distribution this might well be named the Southern buffalo grass, to distinguish it from the two other species of higher latitudes, to which the name “buffalo” has been fastened forever.

Stipa spartea (Northern buffalo-grass; wild oat). —This grass is found in southern Manitoba, westwardly across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, and southward as far as Montana, where it is common in many localities. On what was once the buffalo range of the British Possessions this rank grass formed the bulk of the winter pasturage, and in that region is quite as famous as our grama grass. An allied species (Stipa viridula, bunch-grass) is “widely diffused over our Rocky Mountain region, extending to California and British America, and furnishing a considerable part of the wild forage of the region” Stipa spartea bears an ill name among stockmen on account of the fact that at the base of each seed is a very hard and sharp-pointed callus, which under certain circumstances (so it is said) lodges in the cheeks of domestic animals that feed upon this grass when it is dry, and which cause much trouble. But the buffalo, like the wild horse and half-wild range cattle, evidently escaped this annoyance. This grass is one of the common species over a wide area of the northern plains, and is always found on soil which is comparatively dry. In Dakota, Minnesota, and northwest Iowa it forms a considerable portion of the upland prairie hay.

Of the remaining grasses it is practically impossible to single out any one as being specially entitled to fourth place in this list.There are several species which flourish in different localities, and in many respects appear to be of about equal importance as food for stock.Of these the following are the most noteworthy:

Aristida purpurea (Western beard-grass; purple “bunch-grass” of Montana). —On the high, rolling prairies of the Missouri-Yellowstone divide this grass is very abundant. It grows in little solitary bunches, about 6 inches high, scattered through the curly buffalo-grass (Bouteloua oligostachya). Under more favorable conditions it grows to a height of 12 to 18 inches. It is one of the prettiest grasses of that region, and in the fall and winter its purplish color makes it quite noticeable. The Montana stockmen consider it one of the most valuable grasses of that region for stock of all kinds. Mr. C. M. Jacobs assured me that the buffalo used to be very fond of this grass, and that “wherever this grass grew in abundance there were the best hunting-grounds for the bison.” It appears that Aristida purpurea is not sufficiently abundant elsewhere in the Northwest to make it an important food for stock; but Dr. Vesey declares that it is “abundant on the plains of Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas.”

Kœleria cristata.—Very generally distributed from Texas and New Mexico to the British Possessions; sand hills and arid soils; mountains, up to 8,000 feet.

Poa tenuifolia (blue-grass of the plains and mountains). —A valuable “bunch-grass,” widely distributed throughout the great pasture region; grows in all sorts of soils and situations; common in the Yellowstone Park.

Festuca scabrella (bunch-grass). —One of the most valuable grasses of Montana and the Northwest generally; often called the “great bunch-grass.” It furnishes excellent food for horses and cattle, and is so tall it is cut in large quantities for hay. This is the prevailing species on the foot-hills and mountains generally, up to an altitude of 7,000 feet, where it is succeeded by Festuca ovina

Andropogon provincialis (blue stem). —An important species, extending from eastern Kansas and Nebraska to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, and from Northern Texas to the Saskatchewan; common in Montana on alkali flats and bottom lands generally. This and the preceding species were of great value to the buffalo in winter, when the shorter grasses were covered with snow.

Andropogon scoparius (bunch grass; broom sedge; wood-grass). —Similar to the preceding in distribution and value, but not nearly so tall.

None of the buffalo grasses are found in the mountains. In the mountain regions which have been visited by the buffalo and in the Yellowstone Park, where to-day the only herd remaining in a state of nature is to be found (though not by the man with a gun), the following are the grasses which form all but a small proportion of the ruminant food: Kœleria cristata; Poa tenuifolia (Western blue-grass); Stipa viridula (feather-grass); Stipa comata; Agropyrum divergens; Agropyrum caninum

When pressed by hunger, the buffalo used to browse on certain species of sage-brush, particularly Atriplex canescens of the Southwest. But he was discriminating in the matter of diet, and as far as can be ascertained he was never known to eat the famous and much-dreaded “loco” weed (Astragalus molissimus), which to ruminant animals is a veritable drug of madness.Domestic cattle and horses often eat this plant; where it is abundant, and become demented in consequence.

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VII.Mental Capacity and Disposition.

(1) Reasoning from cause to effect.—The buffalo of the past was an animal of a rather low order of intelligence, and his dullness of intellect was one of the important factors in his phenomenally swift extermination.He was provokingly slow in comprehending the existence and nature of the dangers that threatened his life, and, like the stupid brute that he was, would very often stand quietly and see two or three score, or even a hundred, of his relatives and companions shot down before his eyes, with no other feeling than one of stupid wonder and curiosity.Neither the noise nor smoke of the still-hunter’s rifle, the falling, struggling, nor the final death of his companions conveyed to his mind the idea of a danger to be fled from, and so the herd stood still and allowed the still-hunter to slaughter its members at will.

Like the Indian, and many white men also, the buffalo seemed to feel that their number was so great it could never be sensibly diminished.The presence of such a great multitude gave to each of its individuals a feeling of security and mutual support that is very generally found in animals who congregate in great herds.The time was when a band of elk would stand stupidly and wait for its members to be shot down one after another; but it is believed that this was due more to panic than to a lack of comprehension of danger.

The fur seals who cover the “hauling grounds” of St.Paul and St.George Islands, Alaska, in countless thousands, have even less sense of danger and less comprehension of the slaughter of thousands of their kind, which takes place daily, than had the bison.They allow themselves to be herded and driven off landwards from the hauling-ground for half a mile to the killing-ground, and, finally, with most cheerful indifference, permit the Aleuts to club their brains out.

It is to be added that whenever and wherever seals or sea-lions inhabit a given spot, with but few exceptions, it is an easy matter to approach individuals of the herd. The presence of an immense number of individuals plainly begets a feeling of security and mutual support. And let not the bison or the seal be blamed for this, for man himself exhibits the same foolish instinct. Who has not met the woman of mature years and full intellectual vigor who is mortally afraid to spend a night entirely alone in her own house, but is perfectly willing to do so, and often does do so without fear, when she can have the company of one small and helpless child, or, what is still worse, three or four of them! But with the approach of extermination, and the utter breaking up of all the herds, a complete change has been wrought in the character of the bison. At last, but alas! entirely too late, the crack of the rifle and its accompanying puff of smoke conveyed to the slow mind of the bison a sense of deadly danger to himself. At last he recognized man, whether on foot or horseback, or peering at him from a coulée, as his mortal enemy. At last he learned to run. In 1886 we found the scattered remnant of the great northern herd the wildest and most difficult animals to kill that we had ever hunted in any country. It had been only through the keenest exercise of all their powers of self-preservation that those buffaloes had survived until that late day, and we found them almost as swift as antelopes and far more wary. The instant a buffalo caught sight of a man, even though a mile distant, he was off at the top of his speed, and generally ran for some wild region several miles away.

In our party was an experienced buffalo-hunter, who in three years had slaughtered over three thousand head for their hides.He declared that if he could ever catch a “bunch” at rest he could “get a stand” the same as he used to do, and kill several head before the rest would run.It so happened that the first time we found buffaloes we discovered a bunch of fourteen head, lying in the sun at noon, on the level top of a low butte, all noses pointing up the wind.We stole up within range and fired.At the instant the first shot rang out up sprang every buffalo as if he had been thrown upon his feet by steel springs, and in a second’s time the whole bunch was dashing away from us with the speed of race-horses.

Our buffalo-hunter declared that in chasing buffaloes we could count with certainty upon their always running against the wind, for this had always been their habit.Although this was once their habit, we soon found that those who now represent the survival of the fittest have learned better wisdom, and now run (1) away from their pursuer and (2) toward the best hiding place.Now they pay no attention whatever to the direction of the wind, and if a pursuer follows straight behind, a buffalo may change his course three or four times in a 10-mile chase.An old bull once led one of our hunters around three-quarters of a circle which had a diameter of 5 or 6 miles.

The last buffaloes were mentally as capable of taking care of themselves as any animals I ever hunted. The power of original reasoning which they manifested in scattering all over a given tract of rough country, like hostile Indians when hotly pressed by soldiers, in the Indian-like manner in which they hid from sight in deep hollows, and, as we finally proved, in grazing only in ravines and hollows, proved conclusively that but for the use of fire-arms those very buffaloes would have been actually safe from harm by man, and that they would have increased indefinitely. As they were then, the Indians’ arrows and spears could never have been brought to bear upon them, save in rare instances, for they had thoroughly learned to dread man and fly from him for their lives. Could those buffaloes have been protected from rifles and revolvers the resultant race would have displayed far more active mental powers, keener vision, and finer physique than the extinguished race possessed.

In fleeing from an enemy the buffalo ran against the wind, in order that his keen scent might save him from the disaster of running upon new enemies; which was an idea wholly his own, and not copied by any other animal so far as known.

But it must be admitted that the buffalo of the past was very often a most stupid reasoner. He would deliberately walk into a quicksand, where hundreds of his companions were already ingulfed and in their death-struggle. He would quit feeding, run half a mile, and rush headlong into a moving train of cars that happened to come between him and the main herd on the other side of the track. He allowed himself to be impounded and slaughtered by a howling mob in a rudely constructed pen, which a combined effort on the part of three or four old bulls would have utterly demolished at any point. A herd of a thousand buffaloes would allow an armed hunter to gallop into their midst, very often within arm’s-length, when any of the bulls nearest him might easily have bowled him over and had him trampled to death in a moment. The hunter who would ride in that manner into a herd of the Cape buffaloes of Africa (Bubalus caffer) would be unhorsed and killed before he had gone half a furlong.

(2) Curiosity.—The buffalo of the past possessed but little curiosity; he was too dull to entertain many unnecessary thoughts.Had he possessed more of this peculiar trait, which is the mark of an inquiring mind, he would much sooner have accomplished a comprehension of the dangers that proved his destruction.His stolid indifference to everything he did not understand cost him his existence, although in later years he displayed more interest in his environment.On one occasion in hunting I staked my success with an old bull I was pursuing on the chance that when he reached the crest of a ridge his curiosity would prompt him to pause an instant to look at me.Up to that moment he had had only one quick glance at me before he started to run.As he climbed the slope ahead of me, in full view, I dismounted and made ready to fire the instant he should pause to look at me.As I expected, he did come to a fall stop on the crest of the ridge, and turned half around to look at me.But for his curiosity I should have been obliged to fire at him under very serious disadvantages.

(3) Fear.—With the buffalo, fear of man is now the ruling passion.Says Colonel Dodge: “He is as timid about his flank and rear as a raw recruit.When traveling nothing in front stops him, but an unusual object in the rear will send him to the right-about [toward the main body of the herd] at the top of his speed.”

(4) Courage.—It was very seldom that the buffalo evinced any courage save that of despair, which even cowards possess.Unconscious of his strength, his only thought was flight, and it was only when brought to bay that he was ready to fight.Now and then, however, in the chase, the buffalo turned upon his pursuer and overthrew horse and rider.Sometimes the tables were completely turned, and the hunter found his only safety in flight.During the buffalo slaughter the butchers sometimes had narrow escapes from buffaloes supposed to be dead or mortally wounded, and a story comes from the great northern range south of Glendive of a hunter who was killed by an old bull whose tongue he had actually cut out in the belief that he was dead.

Sometimes buffalo cows display genuine courage in remaining with their calves in the presence of danger, although in most cases they left their offspring to their fate.During a hunt for live buffalo calves, undertaken by Mr. C.J.Jones of Garden City, Kans., in 1886, and very graphically described by a staff correspondent of the American Field in a series of articles in that journal under the title of “The Last of the Buffalo,” the following remarkable incident occurred:[41]

“The last calf was caught by Carter, who roped it neatly as Mr. Jones cut it out of the herd and turned it toward him.This was a fine heifer calf, and was apparently the idol of her mother’s heart, for the latter came very near making a casualty the price of the capture.As soon as the calf was roped, the old cow left the herd and charged on Carter viciously, as he bent over his victim.Seeing the danger, Mr. Jones rode in at just the nick of time, and drove the cow off for a moment; but she returned again and again, and finally began charging him whenever he came near; so that, much as he regretted it, he had to shoot her with his revolver, which he did, killing her almost immediately.”

The mothers of the thirteen other calves that were caught by Mr. Jones’s party allowed their offspring to be “cut out,” lassoed, and tied, while they themselves devoted all their energies to leaving them as far behind as possible.

(5) Affection.—While the buffalo cows manifested a fair degree of affection for their young, the adult bulls of the herd often displayed a sense of responsibility for the safety of the calves that was admirable, to say the least.Those who have had opportunities for watching large herds tell us that whenever wolves approached and endeavored to reach a calf the old bulls would immediately interpose and drive the enemy away.It was a well-defined habit for the bulls to form the outer circle of every small group or section of a great herd, with the calves in the center, well guarded from the wolves, which regarded them as their most choice prey.

Colonel Dodge records a remarkable incident in illustration of the manner in which the bull buffaloes protected the calves of the herd.[42]

“The duty of protecting the calves devolved almost entirely on the bulls.I have seen evidences of this many times, but the most remarkable instance I have ever heard of was related to me by an army surgeon, who was an eye-witness.

“He was one evening returning to camp after a day’s hunt, when his attention was attracted by the curious action of a little knot of six or eight buffalo.Approaching sufficiently near to see clearly, he discovered that this little knot were all bulls, standing in a close circle, with their heads outwards, while in a concentric circle at some 12 or 15 paces distant sat, licking their chaps in impatient expectancy, at least a dozen large gray wolves (excepting man, the most dangerous enemy of the buffalo).

“The doctor determined to watch the performance.After a few moments the knot broke up, and, still keeping in a compact mass, started on a trot for the main herd, some half a mile oft”.To his very great astonishment, the doctor now saw that the central and controlling figure of this mass was a poor little calf so newly born as scarcely to be able to walk.After going 50 or 100 paces the calf laid down, the bulls disposed themselves in a circle as before, and the wolves, who had trotted along on each side of their retreating supper, sat down and licked their chaps again; and though the doctor did not see the finale, it being late and the camp distant, he had no doubt that the noble fathers did their whole duty by their offspring, and carried it safely to the herd.”

(6) Temper.—I have asked many old buffalo hunters for facts in regard to the temper and disposition of herd buffaloes, and all agree that they are exceedingly quiet, peace loving, and even indolent animals at all times save during the rutting season.Says Colonel Dodge: “The habits of the buffalo are almost identical with those of the domestic cattle.Owing either to a more pacific disposition, or to the greater number of bulls, there, is very little fighting, even at the season when it might be expected.I have been among them for days, have watched their conduct for hours at a time, and with the very best opportunities for observation, but have never seen a regular combat between bulls.They frequently strike each other with their horns, but this seems to be a mere expression of impatience at being crowded.”

In referring to the “running season” of the buffalo, Mr. Catlin says: “It is no uncommon thing at this season, at these gatherings, to see several thousands in a mass eddying and wheeling about under a cloud of dust, which is raised by the bulls as they are pawing in the dirt, or engaged in desperate combats, as they constantly are, plunging and butting at each other in a most furious manner.”

On the whole, the disposition of the buffalo is anything but vicious.Both sexes yield with surprising readiness to the restraints of captivity, and in a remarkably short time become, if taken young, as fully domesticated as ordinary cattle.Buffalo calves are as easily tamed as domestic ones, and make very interesting pets.A prominent trait of character in the captive buffalo is a mulish obstinacy or headstrong perseverance under certain circumstances that is often very annoying.When a buffalo makes up his mind to go through a fence, he is very apt to go through, either peaceably or by force, as occasion requires.Fortunately, however, the captive animals usually accept a fence in the proper spirit, and treat it with a fair degree of respect.

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VIII.Value of the Buffalo to MAN.

It may fairly be supposed that if the people of this country could have been made to realize the immense money value of the great buffalo herds as they existed in 1870, a vigorous and successful effort would have been made to regulate and restrict the slaughter. The fur seal of Alaska, of which about 100,000 are killed annually for their skins, yield an annual revenue to the Government of $100,000 and add $900,000 more to the actual wealth of the United States.It pays to protect those seals, and we mean to protect them against all comers who seek their unrestricted slaughter, no matter whether the poachers be American, English, Russian, or Canadian.It would be folly to do otherwise, and if those who would exterminate the fur seal by shooting them in the water will not desist for the telling, then they must by the compelling.

The fur seal is a good investment for the United States, and their number is not diminishing.As the buffalo herds existed in 1870, 500,000 head of bulls, young and old, could have been killed every year for a score of years without sensibly diminishing the size of the herds.At a low estimate these could easily have been made to yield various products worth $5 each, as follows: Kobe, $2.50; tongue, 20 cents; meat of hindquarters, $2; bones, horns, and hoofs, 25 cents; total, $5.And the amount annually added to the wealth of the United States would have been $2,500,000.

On all the robes taken for the market, say, 200,000, the Government could have collected a tax of 50 cents each, which would have yielded a sum doubly sufficient to have maintained a force of mounted police fully competent to enforce the laws regulating the slaughter.Had a contract for the protection of the buffalo been offered at $50,000 per annum, ay, or even half that sum, an army of competent men would have competed for it every year, and it could have been carried out to the letter.But, as yet, the American people have not learned to spend money for the protection of valuable game; and by the time they do learn it, there will be no game to protect.

Even despite the enormous waste of raw material that ensued in the utilization of the buffalo product, the total cash value of all the material derived from this source, if it could only be reckoned up, would certainly amount to many millions of dollars—perhaps twenty millions, all told.This estimate may, to some, seem high, but when we stop to consider that in eight years, from 1876 to 1884, a single firm, that of Messrs.J.& A.Boskowitz, 105 Greene street, New York, paid out the enormous sum of $923,070 (nearly one million) for robes and hides, and that in a single year (1882) another firm, that of Joseph Ullman, 165 Mercer street, New York, paid out $216,250 for robes and hides, it may not seem so incredible.

Had there been a deliberate plan for the suppression of all statistics relating to the slaughter of buffalo in the United States, and what it yielded, the result could not have been more complete barrenness than exists to-day in regard to this subject.There is only one railway company which kept its books in such a manner as to show the kind and quantity of its business at that time.Excepting this, nothing is known definitely.

Fortunately, enough facts and figures were recorded during the hunting operations of the Red River half-breeds to enable us, by bringing them all together, to calculate with sufficient exactitude the value of the buffalo to them from 1820 to 1840.The result ought to be of interest to all who think it is not worth while to spend money in preserving our characteristic game animals.

In Ross’s “Red River Settlement,” pp.242-273, and Schoolcraft’s “North American Indians,” Part iv, pp.101-110, are given detailed accounts of the conduct and results of two hunting expeditions by the half-breeds, with many valuable statistics.On this data we base our calculation.

Taking the result of one particular day’s slaughter as an index to the methods of the hunters in utilizing the products of the chase, we find that while “not less than 2,500 animals were killed,” out of that number only 375 bags of pemmican and 240 bales of dried meat were made.“Now,” says Mr. Ross,” making all due allowance for waste, 750 animals would have been ample for such a result.What, then, we might ask, became of the remaining 1,750!* * * Scarcely one-third in number of the animals killed is turned to account.”

A bundle of dried meat weighs 60 to 70 pounds, and a bag of pemmican 100 to 110 pounds.If economically worked up, a whole buffalo cow yields half a bag of pemmican (about 55 pounds) and three-fourths of a bundle of dried meat (say 45 pounds).The most economical calculate that from eight to ten cows are required to load a single Red River cart.The proceeds of 1,776 cows once formed 228 bags of pemmican, 1,213 bales of dried meat, 166 sacks of tallow, each weighing 200 pounds, 556 bladders of marrow weighing 12 pounds each, and the value of the whole was $8,160.The total of the above statement is 132,057 pounds of buffalo product for 1,776 cows, or within a fraction of 75 pounds to each cow.The bulls and young animals killed were not accounted for.

The expedition described by Mr. Ross contained 1,210 carts and 620 hunters, and returned with 1,089,000 pounds of meat, making 900 pounds for each cart, and 200 pounds for each individual in the expedition, of all ages and both sexes.Allowing, as already ascertained, that of the above quantity of product every 75 pounds represents one cow saved and two and one third buffaloes wasted, it means that 14,520 buffaloes were killed and utilized and 33,250 buffaloes were killed and eaten fresh or wasted, and 47,770 buffaloes were killed by 620 hunters, or an average of 77 buffaloes to each hunter.The total number of buffaloes killed for each cart was 39.

Allowing, what was actually the case, that every buffalo killed would, if properly cared for, have yielded meat, fat, and robe worth at least $5, the total value of the buffaloes slaughtered by that expedition amounted to $258,850, and of which the various products actually utilized represented a cash value of $72,001 added to the wealth of the Red River half-breeds.

In 1820 there went 540 carts to the buffalo plains; in 1825, 680; in 1830, 820; in 1835, 970; in 1840, 1,210.

From 1820 to 1825 the average for each year was 610; from 1825 to 1830, 750; from 1830 to 1835, 895; from 1835 to 1840, 1,000.

Accepting the statements of eye-witnesses that for every buffalo killed two and one-third buffaloes are wasted or eaten on the spot, and that every loaded cart represented thirty-nine dead buffaloes which were worth when utilized $5 each, we have the following series of totals:

From 1820 to 1825 five expeditions, of 610 carts each, killed 118,950 buffaloes, worth $594,750.

From 1825 to 1830 five expeditions, of 750 carts each, killed 146,250 buffaloes, worth $731,250.

From 1830 to 1835 five expeditions, of 895 carts each, killed 174,525 buffaloes, worth $872,625.

From 1835 to 1840 five expeditions, of 1,090 carts each, killed 212,550 buffaloes, worth $1,062,750.

Total number of buffaloes killed in twenty years,[43] $652,275; total value of buffaloes killed in twenty years,[43] $3,261,375; total value of the product utilized[43] and added to the wealth of the settlements, $978,412.

The Eskimo has his seal, which yields nearly everything that he requires; the Korak of Siberia depends for his very existence upon his reindeer; the Ceylon native has the cocoa-nut palm, which leaves him little else to desire, and the North American Indian had the American, bison.If any animal was ever designed by the hand of nature for the express purpose of supplying, at one stroke, nearly all the wants of an entire race, surely the buffalo was intended for the Indian.

And right well was this gift of the gods utilized by the children of nature to whom it came.Up to the time when the United States Government began to support our Western Indians by the payment of annuities and furnishing quarterly supplies of food, clothing, blankets, cloth, tents, etc., the buffalo had been the main dependence of more than 50,000 Indians who inhabited the buffalo range and its environs.Of the many different uses to which the buffalo and his various parts were, put by the red man, the following were the principal ones:

The body of the buffalo yielded fresh meat, of which thousands of tons were consumed; dried meat, prepared in summer for winter use; pemmican (also prepared in summer), of meat, fat, and berries; tallow, made up into large balls or sacks, and kept in store; marrow, preserved in bladders; and tongues, dried and smoked, and eaten as a delicacy.

The skin of the buffalo yielded a robe, dressed with the hair on, for clothing and bedding; a hide, dressed without the hair, which made a teepee cover, when a number were sewn together; boats, when sewn together in a green state, over a wooden framework. Shields, made from the thickest portions, as rawhide; ropes, made up as rawhide; clothing of many kinds; bags for use in traveling; coffins, or winding sheets for the dead, etc.

Other portions utilized were sinews, which furnished fiber for ropes, thread, bow-strings, snow-shoe webs, etc.; hair, which was sometimes made into belts and ornaments; “buffalo chips,” which formed a valuable and highly-prized fuel; bones, from which many articles of use and ornament were made; horns, which were made into spoons, drinking vessels, etc.

After the United States Government began to support the buffalo-hunting Indians with annuities and supplies, the woolen blanket and canvas tent took the place of the buffalo robe and the skin-covered teepee, and “Government beef” took the place of buffalo meat.But the slaughter of buffaloes went on just the same, and the robes and hides taken were traded for useless and often harmful luxuries, such as canned provisions, fancy knickknacks, whisky, fire-arms of the most approved pattern, and quantities of fixed ammunition.During the last ten years of the existence of the herds it is an open question whether the buffalo did not do our Indians more harm than good.Amongst the Crows, who were liberally provided for by the Government, horse racing was a common pastime, and the stakes were usually dressed buffalo robes.[44]

The total disappearance of the buffalo has made no perceptible difference in the annual cost of the Indians to the Government.During the years when buffaloes were numerous and robes for the purchase of fire-arms and cartridges were plentiful, Indian wars were frequent, and always costly to the Government.The Indians were then quite independent, because they could take the war path at any time and live on buffalo indefinitely.Now, the case is very different.The last time Sitting Bull went on the war-path and was driven up into Manitoba, he had the doubtful pleasure of living on his ponies and dogs until he became utterly starved out.Since his last escapade, the Sioux have been compelled to admit that the game is up and the war-path is open to them no longer.Should they wish to do otherwise they know that they could survive only by killing cattle, and cattle that are guarded by cowboys and ranchmen are no man’s game.Therefore, while we no longer have to pay for an annual campaign in force against hostile Indians, the total absence of the buffalo brings upon the nation the entire support of the Indian, and the cash outlay each year is as great as ever.

The value of the American bison to civilized man can never be calculated, nor even fairly estimated. It may with safety be said, however, that it has been probably tenfold greater than most persons have ever supposed.It would be a work of years to gather statistics of the immense bulk of robes and hides, undoubtedly amounting to millions in the aggregate; the thousands of tons of meat, and the train-loads of bones which have been actually utilized by man.Nor can the effect of the bison’s presence upon the general development of the great West ever be calculated.It has sunk into the great sum total of our progress, and well nigh lost to sight forever.

As a mere suggestion of the immense value of “the buffalo product” at the time when it had an existence, I have obtained from two of our leading fur houses in New York City, with branches elsewhere, a detailed statement of their business in buffalo robes and hides during the last few years of the trade.They not only serve to show the great value of the share of the annual crop that passed through their hands, but that of Messrs.J.& A.Boskowitz is of especial value, because, being carefully itemized throughout, it shows the decline and final failure of the trade in exact figures.I am under many obligations to both these firms for their kindness in furnishing the facts I desired, and especially to the Messrs.Boskowitz, who devoted considerable time and labor to the careful compilation of the annexed statement of their business in buffalo skins.

Memorandum of buffalo robes and hides bought by Messrs J.& A.Boskowitz,
101-105 Greene Street, New York, and 202 Lake street, Chicago, from 1876 to 1884.

Total number of buffalo skins handled in nine years, 246,175; total cost, $924,790.

I have also been favored with some very interesting facts and figures regarding the business done in buffalo skins by the firm of Mr. Joseph Ullman, exporter and importer of furs and robes, of 165-107 Mercer street, New York, and also 353 Jackson street, St.Paul, Minnesota.The following letter was written me by Mr. Joseph Ullman on November 12, 1887, for which I am greatly indebted:

“Inasmuch as you particularly desire the figures for the years 1880-’86, I have gone through my buffalo robe and hide accounts of those years, and herewith give you approximate figures, as there are a good many things to be considered which make it difficult to give exact figures.

“In 1881 we handled about 14,000 hides, average cost about $3.50, and 12,000 robes, average cost about $7.50.

“In 1882 we purchased between 35,000 and 40,000 hides, at an average cost of about $3.50, and about 10,000 robes, at an average cost of about $8.50.

“In 1883 we purchased from 6,000 to 7,000 hides and about 1,500 to 2,000 robes at a slight advance in price against the year previous.

“In 1884 we purchased less than 2,500 hides, and in my opinion these were such as were carried over from the previous season in the Northwest, and were not fresh-slaughtered skins.The collection of robes this season was also comparatively small, and nominally robes carried over from 1883.

“In 1885 the collection of hides amounted to little or nothing.

“The aforesaid goods were all purchased direct in the Northwest, that is to say, principally in Montana, and shipped in care of our branch house at St.Paul, Minnesota, to Joseph Ullman, Chicago.The robes mentioned above were Indian-tanned robes and were mainly disposed of to the jobbing trade both East and West.

“In 1881 and the years prior, the hides were divided into two kinds, viz, robe hides, which were such as had a good crop of fur and were serviceable for robe purposes, and the heavy and short-furred bull hides.The former were principally sold to the John S.Way Manufacturing Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and to numerous small robe tanners, while the latter were sold for leather purposes to various hide-tanners throughout the United States and Canada, and brought 5½ to 8½ cents per pound.A very large proportion of these latter were tanned by the Wilcox Tanning Company, Wilcox, Pennsylvania.

“About the fall of 1882 we established a tannery for buffalo robes in Chicago, and from that time forth we tanned all the good hides which we received into robes and disposed of them in the same manner as the Indian-tanned robes.

“I don’t know that I am called upon to express an opinion as to the benefit or disadvantage of the extermination of the buffalo, but nevertheless take the liberty to say that I think that some proper law restricting the unpardonable slaughter of the buffalo should have been enacted at the time.It is a well-known fact that soon after the Northern Pacific Railroad opened up that portion of the country, thereby making the transportation of the buffalo hides feasible, that is to say, reducing the cost of freight, thousands upon thousands of buffaloes were killed for the sake of the hide alone, while the carcasses were left to rot on the open plains.

“The average prices paid the buffalo hunters [from 1880 to 1884] was about as follows: For cow hides [robes!], $3; bull hides, $2.50; yearlings, $1.50; calves, 75 cents; and the cost of getting the hides to market brought the cost up to about $3.50 per hide.”

The amount actually paid out by Joseph Ullman, in four years, for buffalo robes and hides was about $310,000, and this, too, long after the great southern herd had ceased to exist, and when the northern herd furnished the sole supply. It thus appears that during the course of eight years business (leaving out the small sum paid out in 1884), on the part of the Messrs. Boskowitz, and four years on that of Mr. Joseph Ullman, these two firms alone paid out the enormous sum of $1,233,070 for buffalo robes and hides which they purchased to sell again at a good profit. By the time their share of the buffalo product reached the consumers it must have represented an actual money value of about $2,000,000.

Besides these two firms there were at that time many others who also handled great quantities of buffalo skins and hides for which they paid out immense sums of money.In this country the other leading firms engaged in this business were I.G.Baker & Co., of Fort Benton; P.B.Weare & Co., Chicago; Obern, Hoosick & Co., Chicago and Saint Paul; Martin Bates & Co., and Messrs.Shearer, Nichols & Co.(now Hurlburt, Shearer & Sanford), of New York.There were also many others whose names I am now unable to recall.

In the British Possessions and Canada the frontier business was largely monopolized by the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company, although the annual “output” of robes and hides was but small in comparison with that gathered in the United States, where the herds were far more numerous.Even in their most fruitful locality for robes—the country south of the Saskatchewan—this company had a very powerful competitor in the firm of I.G.Baker & Co., of Fort Benton, which secured the lion’s share of the spoil and sent it down the Missouri River.

It is quite certain that the utilization of the buffalo product, even so far as it was accomplished, resulted in the addition of several millions of dollars to the wealth of the people of the United States.That the total sum, could it be reckoned up, would amount to at least fifteen millions, seems reasonably certain; and my own impression is that twenty millions would be nearer the mark.It is much to be regretted that the exact truth can never be known, for in this age of universal slaughter a knowledge of the cash value of the wild game of the United States that has been killed up to date might go far toward bringing about the actual as well as the theoretical protection of what remains.

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UTILIZATION OF THE BUFFALO BY WHITE MEN.

Robes.—Ordinarily the skin of a large ruminant is of little value in comparison with the bulk of toothsome flesh it covers. In fattening domestic cattle for the market, the value of the hide is so insignificant that it amounts to no more than a butcher’s perquisite in reckoning up the value of the animal. With the buffalo, however, so enormous was the waste of the really available product that probably nine-tenths of the total value derived from the slaughter of the animal came from his skin alone. Of this, about four-fifths came from the utilization of the furry robe and one-fifth from skins classed as “hides,” which were either taken in the summer season, when the hair was very short or almost absent, and used for the manufacture of leather and leather goods, or else were the poorly-furred skins of old bulls.

The season for robe-taking was from October 15 to February 15, and a little later in the more northern latitudes.In the United States the hair of the buffalo was still rather short up to the first of November; but by the middle of November it was about at its finest as to length, density, color, and freshness.The Montana hunters considered that the finest robes were those taken from November 15 to December 15.Before the former date the hair had not quite attained perfection in length, and after the latter it began to show wear and lose color.The winter storms of December and January began to leave their mark upon the robes by the 1st of February, chiefly by giving the hair a bleached and weathered appearance.By the middle of February the pelage was decidedly on the wane, and the robe-hunter was also losing his energy.Often, however, the hunt was kept up until the middle of March, until either the deterioration of the quality of the robe, the migration of the herds northward, or the hunter’s longing to return “to town” and “clean up,” brought the hunt to an end.

On the northern buffalo range, the hunter, or “buffalo skinner,” removed the robe in the following manner:

When the operator had to do his work alone, which was almost always the case, he made haste to skin his victims while they were yet warm, if possible, and before rigor mortis had set in; but, at all hazards, before they should become hard frozen. With a warm buffalo he could easily do his work single-handed, but with one rigid or frozen stiff it was a very different matter.

His first act was to heave the carcass over until it lay fairly upon its back, with its feet up in the air. To keep it in that position he wrenched the head violently around to one side, close against the shoulder, at the point where the hump was highest and the tendency to roll the greatest, and used it very effectually as a chock to keep the body from rolling back upon its side. Having fixed the carcass in position he drew forth his steel, sharpened his sharp-pointed “ripping-knife,” and at once proceeded to make all the opening cuts in the skin. Each leg was girdled to the bone, about 8 inches above the hoof, and the skin of the leg ripped open from that point along the inside to the median line of the body. A long, straight cut was then made along the middle of the breast and abdomen, from the root of the tail to the chin. In skinning cows and young animals, nothing but the skin of the forehead and nose was left on the skull, the skin of the throat and cheeks being left on the hide; but in skinning old bulls, on whose heads the skin was very thick and tough, the whole head was left unskinned, to save labor and time. The skin of the neck was severed in a circle around the neck, just behind the ears. It is these huge heads of bushy brown hair, looking, at a little distance, quite black, in sharp contrast with the ghastly whiteness of the perfect skeletons behind them, which gives such a weird and ghostly appearance to the lifeless prairies of Montana where the bone-gatherer has not yet done his perfect work.The skulls of the cows and young buffaloes are as clean and bare as if they had been carefully macerated, and bleached by a skilled osteologist.

Fig.1.A Dead Bull. From a photograph by L. A. Huffman.

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Fig.2.Buffalo Skinners at Work. From a photograph by L. A. Huffman.

The opening cuts having been made, the broad-pointed “skinning-knife” was duly sharpened, and with it the operator fell to work to detach the skin from the body in the shortest possible time. The tail was always skinned and left on the hide. As soon as the skin was taken off it was spread out on a clean, smooth, and level spot of ground, and stretched to its fullest extent, inside uppermost. On the northern range, very few skins were “pegged out,” i.e., stretched thoroughly and held by means of wooden pegs driven through the edges of the skin into the earth.It was practiced to a limited extent on the southern range during the latter part of the great slaughter, when buffaloes were scarce and time abundant.Ordinarily, however, there was no time for pegging, nor were pegs available on the range to do the work with.A warm skin stretched on the curly buffalo-grass, hair side down, sticks to the ground of itself until it has ample time to harden.On the northern range the skinner always cut the initials of his outfit in the thin subcutaneous muscle which was always found adhering to the skin on each side, and which made a permanent and very plain mark of ownership.

In the south, the traders who bought buffalo robes on the range sometimes rigged up a rude press, with four upright posts and a huge lever, in which robes that had been folded into a convenient size were pressed into bales, like bales of cotton. These could be transported by wagon much more economically than could loose robes. An illustration of this process is given in an article by Theodore R. Davis, entitled “The Buffalo Range,” in Harper’s Magazine for January, 1869, Vol. xxxviii, p. 163. The author describes the process as follows:

“As the robes are secured, the trader has them arranged in lots of ten each, with but little regard for quality other than some care that particularly fine robes do not go too many in one lot.These piles are then pressed into a compact bale by means of a rudely constructed affair composed of saplings and a chain.”

On the northern range, skins were not folded until the time came to haul them in.Then the hunter repaired to the scene of his winter’s work, with a wagon surmounted by a hay-rack (or something like it), usually drawn by four horses.As the skins were gathered up they were folded once, lengthwise down the middle, with the hair inside.Sometimes as many as 100 skins were hauled at one load by four horses.

On one portion of the northern range the classification of buffalo peltries was substantially as follows: Under the head of robes was included all cow skins taken during the proper season, from one year old upward, and all bull skins from one to three years old. Bull skins over three years of age were classed as hides, and while the best of them were finally tanned and used as robes, the really poor ones were converted into leather.The large robes, when tanned, were used very generally throughout the colder portions of North America as sleigh robes and wraps, and for bedding in the regions of extreme cold.The small robes, from the young animals, and likewise many large robes, were made into overcoats, at once the warmest and the most cumbersome that ever enveloped a human being.Thousands of old bull robes were tanned with the hair on, and the body portions were made into overshoes, with the woolly hair inside—absurdly large and uncouth, but very warm.

I never wore a pair of buffalo overshoes without being torn by conflicting emotions—mortification at the ridiculous size of my combined foot-gear, big boots inside of huge overshoes, and supreme comfort derived from feet that were always warm.

Besides the ordinary robe, the hunters and fur buyers of Montana recognized four special qualities, as follows:

The “beaver robe,” with exceedingly fine, wavy fur, the color of a beaver, and having long, coarse, straight hairs coming through it.The latter were of course plucked out in the process of manufacture.These were very rare.In 1882 Mr. James McNaney took one, a cow robe, the only one out of 1,200 robes taken that season, and sold it for $75, when ordinary robes fetched only $3.50.

The “black-and-tan robe” is described as having the nose, flanks, and inside of fore legs black-and-tan (whatever that may mean), while the remainder of the robe is jet black.

A “buckskin robe” is from what is always called a “white buffalo,” and is in reality a dirty cream color instead of white.A robe of this character sold in Miles City in 1882 for $200, and was the only one of that character taken on the northern range during that entire winter.A very few pure white robes have been taken, so I have been told, chiefly by Indians, but I have never seen one.

A “blue robe” or “mouse-colored (?)robe” is one on which the body color shows a decidedly bluish cast, and at the same time has long, fine fur.Out of his 1,200 robes taken in 1882, Mr. McNaney picked out 12 which passed muster as the much sought for blue robes, and they sold at $16 each.

As already intimated, the price paid on the range for ordinary buffalo skins varied according to circumstances, and at different periods, and in different localities, ranged all the way from 65 cents to $10. The latter figure was paid in Texas in 1887 for the last lot of “robes” ever taken. The lowest prices ever paid were during the tremendous slaughter which annihilated the southern herd. Even as late as 1876, in the southern country, cow robes brought on the range only from 65 to 90 cents, and bull robes $1.15.On the northern range, from 1881 to 1883, the prices paid were much higher, ranging from $2.50 to $4.

Fig.1.Five Minutes’ Work. Photographed by L. A. Huffman.

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Fig.2.Scene on the Northern Buffalo Range. Photographed by L. A. Huffman.

A few hundred dressed robes still remain in the hands of some of the largest fur dealers in New York, Chicago, and Montreal, which can be purchased at prices much lower than one would expect, considering the circumstances.In 1888, good robes, Indian tanned, were offered in New York at prices ranging from $15 to $30, according to size and quality, but in Montreal no first-class robes were obtainable at less than $40.

Hides.—Next in importance to robes was the class of skins known commercially as hides.Under this head were classed all skins which for any reason did not possess the pelage necessary to a robe, and were therefore fit only for conversion into leather.Of these, the greater portion consisted of the skins of old bulls on which the hair was of poor quality and the skin itself too thick and heavy to ever allow of its being made into a soft, pliable, and light-weight robe.The remaining portion of the hides marketed were from buffaloes killed in spring and summer, when the body and hindquarters ware almost naked.Apparently the quantity of summer-killed hides marketed was not very great, for it was only the meanest and most unprincipled ones of the grand army of buffalo-killers who were mean enough to kill buffaloes in summer simply for their hides.It is said that at one time summer-killing was practiced on the southern range to an extent that became a cause for alarm to the great body of more respectable hunters, and the practice was frowned upon so severely that the wretches who engaged in it found it wise to abandon it.

Bones.—Next in importance to robes and hides was the bone product, the utilization of which was rendered possible by the rigorous climate of the buffalo plains.Under the influence of the wind and sun and the extremes of heat and cold, the flesh remaining upon a carcass dried up, disintegrated, and fell to dust, leaving the bones of almost the entire skeleton as clean and bare as if they had been stripped of flesh by some powerful chemical process.Very naturally, no sooner did the live buffaloes begin to grow scarce than the miles of bleaching’ bones suggested the idea of finding a use for them.A market was readily found for them in the East, and the prices paid per ton were sufficient to make the business of bone-gathering quite remunerative.The bulk of the bone product was converted into phosphate for fertilizing purposes, but much of it was turned into carbon for use in the refining of sugar.

The gathering of bones became a common industry as early as 1872, during which year 1,135,300 pounds were shipped over the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad. In the year following the same road shipped 2,743,100 pounds, and in 1874 it handled 6,914,950 pounds more. This trade continued from that time on until the plains have been gleaned so far back from the railway lines that it is no longer profitable to seek them.For that matter, however, it is said that south of the Union Pacific nothing worth the seeking now remains.

The building of the Northern Pacific Railway made possible the shipment of immense quantities of dry bones.Even as late as 1886 overland travelers saw at many of the stations between Jamestown, Dakota, and Billings, Montana, immense heaps of bones lying alongside the track awaiting shipment.In 1885 a single firm shipped over 200 tons of bones from Miles City.

The valley of the Missouri River was gleaned by teamsters who gathered bones from as far back as 100 miles and hauled them to the river for shipment on the steamers.An operator who had eight wagons in the business informed me that in order to ship bones on the river steamers it was necessary to crush them, and that for crushed bones, shipped in bags, a Michigan fertilizer company paid $18 per ton.Uncrushed bones, shipped by the railway, sold for $12 per ton.

It is impossible to ascertain the total amount or value of the bone product, but it is certain that it amounted to many thousand tons, and in value must have amounted to some hundreds of thousands of dollars.But for the great number of railroads, river steamers, and sea-going vessels (from Texas ports) engaged in carrying this product, it would have cut an important figure in the commerce of the country, but owing to the many interests between which it was divided it attracted little attention.

Meat.—The amount of fresh buffalo meat cured and marketed was really very insignificant.So long as it was to be had at all it was so very abundant that it was worth only from 2 to 3 cents per pound in the market, and many reasons combined to render the trade in fresh buffalo meat anything but profitable.Probably not more than one one-thousandth of the buffalo meat that might have been saved and utilized was saved.The buffalo carcasses that were wasted on the great plains every year during the two great periods of slaughter (of the northern and southern herds) would probably have fed to satiety during the entire time more than a million persons.

As to the quality of buffalo meat, it may be stated in general terms that it differs in no way whatever from domestic beef of the same age produced by the same kind of grass. Perhaps there is no finer grazing ground in the world than Montana, and the beef it produces is certainly entitled to rank with the best. There are many persons who claim to recognize a difference between the taste of buffalo meat and domestic beef; but for my part I do not believe any difference really exists, unless it is that the flesh of the buffalo is a little sweeter and more juicy. As for myself, I feel certain I could not tell the difference between the flesh of a three-year old buffalo and that of a domestic beef of the same age, nor do I believe any one else could, even on a wager. Having once seen a butcher eat an elephant steak in the belief that it was beef from his own shop, and another butcher eat loggerhead turtle steak for beef, I have become somewhat skeptical in regard to the intelligence of the human palate.

As a matter of experiment, during our hunt for buffalo we had buffalo meat of all ages, from one year up to eleven, cooked in as many different ways as our culinary department could turn out.We had it broiled, fried with batter, roasted, boiled, and stewed.The last method, when employed upon slices of meat that had been hacked from a frozen hind-quarter, produced results that were undeniably tough and not particularly good.But it was an unfair way to cook any kind of meat, and may be guarantied to spoil the finest beef in the world.

Hump meat from a cow buffalo not too old, cut in slices and fried in batter, a la cowboy, is delicious—a dish fit for the gods.We had tongues in plenty, but the ordinary meat was so good they were not half appreciated.Of course the tenderloin was above criticism, and even the round steaks, so lightly esteemed by the epicure, were tender and juicy to a most satisfactory degree.

It has been said that the meat of the buffalo has a coarser texture or “grain” than domestic beef.Although I expected to find such to be the case, I found no perceptible difference whatever, nor do I believe that any exists.As to the distribution of fat I am unable to say, for the reason that our buffaloes were not fat.

It is highly probable that the distribution of fat through the meat, so characteristic of the shorthorn breeds, and which has been brought about only by careful breeding, is not found in either the beef of the buffalo or common range cattle.In this respect, shorthorn beef no doubt surpasses both the others mentioned, but in all other points, texture, flavor, and general tenderness, I am very sure it does not.

It is a great mistake for a traveler to kill a patriarchal old bull buffalo, and after attempting to masticate a small portion of him to rise up and declare that buffalo meat is coarse, tough, and dry. A domestic bull of the same age would taste as tough. It is probably only those who have had the bad taste to eat bull-beef who have ever found occasion to asperse the reputation of Bison americanus as a beef animal.

Until people got tired of them, buffalo tongues were in considerable demand, and hundreds, if not even thousands, of barrels of them were shipped east from the buffalo country.

Pemmican.—Out of the enormous waste of good buffalo flesh one product stands forth as a redeeming feature—pemmican. Although made almost exclusively by the half-breeds and Indians of the Northwest it constituted a regular article of commerce of great value to overland travelers, and was much sought for as long as it was produced. Its peculiar “staying powers,” due to the process of its manufacture, which yielded a most nourishing food in a highly condensed form, made it of inestimable value to the overland traveler who must travel light or not at all. A handful of pemmican was sufficient food to constitute a meal when provisions were at all scarce. The price of pemmican in Winnipeg was once as low as 2d.per pound, but in 1883 a very small quantity which was brought in sold at 10 cents per pound.This was probably the last buffalo pemmican made.H.M.Robinson states that in 1878 pemmican was worth 1s.3d.per pound.

The manufacture of pemmican, as performed by the Red River half-breeds, was thus described by the Rev.Mr. Belcourt, a Catholic priest, who once accompanied one of the great buffalo-hunting expeditions:[45]

“Other portions which are destined to be made into pimikehigan, or pemmican, are exposed to an ardent heat, and thus become brittle and easily reducible to small particles by the use of a flail, the buffalo-hide answering the purpose of a threshing-floor.The fat or tallow, being cut up and melted in large kettles of sheet iron, is poured upon this pounded meat, and the whole mass is worked together with shovels until it is well amalgamated, when it is pressed, while still warm, into bags made of buffalo skin, which are strongly sewed up, and the mixture gradually cools and becomes almost as hard as a rock.If the fat used in this process is that taken from the parts containing the udder, the meat is called fine pemmican.In some cases, dried fruits, such as the prairie pear and cherry, are intermixed, which forms what is called seed pemmican.Tho lovers of good eating judge the first described to be very palatable; the second, better; the third, excellent.A taurean of pemmican weighs from 100 to 110 pounds.Some idea may be formed of the immense destruction of buffalo by these people when it is stated that a whole cow yields one-half a bag of pemmican and three fourths of a bundle of dried meat; so that the most economical calculate that from eight to ten cows are required for the load of a single vehicle.”

It is quite evident from the testimony of disinterested travelers that ordinary pemmican was not very palatable to one unaccustomed to it as a regular article of food. To the natives, however, especially the Canadian voyageur, it formed one of the most valuable food products of the country, and it is said that the demand for it was generally greater than the supply.

Dried, or “jerked” meat.—The most popular and universal method of curing buffalo meat was to cut it into thin flakes, an inch or less in thickness and of indefinite length, and without salting it in the least to hang it over poles, ropes, wicker-frames, or even clumps of standing sage brush, and let it dry in the sun.This process yielded the famous “jerked” meat so common throughout the West in the early days, from the Rio Grande to the Saskatchewan.Father Belcourt thus described the curing process as it was practiced by the half-breeds and Indians of the Northwest:

“The meat, when taken to camp, is cut by the women into long strips about a quarter of an inch thick, which are hung upon the lattice-work prepared for that purpose to dry. This lattice-work is formed of small pieces of wood, placed horizontally, transversely, and equidistant from each other, not unlike an immense gridiron, and is supported by wooden uprights (trepieds). In a few days the meat is thoroughly desiccated, when it is bent into proper lengths and tied into bundles of 60 or 70 pounds weight. This is called dried meat (viande seche). To make the hide into parchment (so called) it is stretched on a frame, and then scraped on the inside with a piece of sharpened bone and on the outside with a small but sharp-curved iron, proper to remove the hair. This is considered, likewise, the appropriate labor of women. The men break the bones, which are boiled in water to extract the marrow to be used for frying and other culinary purposes. The oil is then poured into the bladder of the animal, which contains, when filled, about 12 pounds, being the yield of the marrow-bones of two buffaloes.”

In the Northwest Territories dried meat, which formerly sold at 2d. per pound, was worth in 1878 10d. per pound.

Although I have myself prepared quite a quantity of jerked buffalo meat, I never learned to like it.Owing to the absence of salt in its curing, the dried meat when pounded and made into a stew has a “far away” taste which continually reminds one of hoofs and horns.For all that, and despite its resemblance in flavor to Liebig’s Extract of Beef, it is quite good, and better to the taste than ordinary pemmican.

The Indians formerly cured great quantities of buffalo meat in this way—in summer, of course, for use in winter—but the advent of that popular institution called “Government beef” long ago rendered it unnecessary for the noble red man to exert his squaw in that once honorable field of labor.

During the existence of the buffalo herds a few thrifty and enterprising white men made a business of killing buffaloes in summer and drying the meat in bulk, in the same manner which to-day produces our popular “dried beef.”Mr. Allen states that “a single hunter at Hays City shipped annually for some years several hundred barrels thus prepared, which the consumers probably bought for ordinary beef.”

Uses of bison’s hair.—Numerous attempts have been made to utilize the woolly hair of the bison in the manufacture of textile fabrics.As early as 1729 Col.William Byrd records the fact that garments were made of this material, as follows:

“The Hair growing upon his Head and Neck is long and Shagged, and so Soft that it will spin into Thread not unlike Mohair, and might be wove into a sort of Camlet.Some People have Stockings knit of it, that would have served an Israelite during his forty Years march thro’ the Wilderness.”[46]

In 1637 Thomas Morton published, in his “New English Canaan,” p.98,[47] the following reference to the Indians who live on the southern shore of Lake Erocoise, supposed to be Lake Ontario:

“These Beasts [buffaloes, undoubtedly] are of the bignesse of a Cowe, their flesh being very good foode, their hides good lether, their fleeces very usefull, being a kind of wolle, as fine as the wolle of the Beaver, and the Salvages doe make garments thereof.”

Professor Allen quotes a number of authorities who have recorded statements in regard to the manufacture of belts, garters, scarfs, sacks, etc., from buffalo wool by various tribes of Indians.[48] He also calls attention to the only determined efforts ever made by white men on a liberal scale for the utilization of buffalo “wool” and its manufacture into cloth, an account of which appears in Ross’s “Red River Settlement,” pp. 69-72. In 1821 some of the more enterprising of the Red River (British) colonists conceived the idea of making fortunes out of the manufacture of woolen goods from the fleece of the buffalo, and for that purpose organized the Buffalo Wool Company, the principal object of which was declared to be “to provide a substitute for wool, which substitute was to be the wool of the wild buffalo, which was to be collected in the plains and manufactured both for the use of the colonists and for export.” A large number of skilled workmen of various kinds were procured from England, and also a plant of machinery and materials. When too late, it was found that the supply of buffalo wool obtainable was utterly insufficient, the raw wool costing the company 1s. 6d. per pound, and cloth which it cost the company £2 10s. per yard to produce was worth only 4s. 6d. per yard in England. The historian states that universal drunkenness on the part of all concerned aided very materially in bringing about the total failure of the enterprise in a very short time.

While it is possible to manufacture the fine, woolly fur of the bison into cloth or knitted garments, provided a sufficient supply of the raw material could be obtained (which is and always has been impossible), nothing could be more visionary than an attempt to thus produce salable garments at a profit.

Articles of wearing apparel made of buffalo’s hair are interesting as curiosities, for their rarity makes them so, but that is the only end they can ever serve so long as there is a sheep living.

In the National Museum, in the section of animal products, there is displayed a pair of stockings made in Canada from the finest buffalo wool, from the body of the animal.They are thick, heavy, and full of the coarse, straight hairs, which it seems can never be entirely separated from the fine wool.In general texture they are as coarse as the coarsest sheep’s wool would produce.

With the above are also displayed a rope-like lariat, made by the Comanche Indians, and a smaller braided lasso, seemingly a sample more than a full-grown lariat, made by the Otoe Indians of Nebraska. Both of the above are made of the long, dark-brown hair of the head and shoulders, and in spite of the fact that they have been twisted as hard as possible, the ends of the hairs protrude so persistently that the surface of each rope is extremely hairy.

Buffalo chips.—Last, but by no means least in value to the traveler on the treeless plains, are the droppings of the buffalo, universally known as “buffalo chips.”When over one year old and thoroughly dry, this material makes excellent fuel.Usually it occurs only where fire-wood is unobtainable, and thousands of frontiersmen have a million times found it of priceless value.When dry, it catches easily, burns readily, and makes a hot fire with but very little smoke, although it is rapidly consumed.Although not as good for a fire as even the poorest timber it is infinitely better than sage-brush, which, in the absence of chips, is often the traveler’s last resort.

It usually happens that chips are most-abundant in the sheltered creek-bottoms and near the water-holes, the very situations which travelers naturally select for their camps.In these spots the herds have gathered either for shelter in winter or for water in summer, and remained in a body for some hours.And now, when the cowboy on the round-up, the surveyor, or hunter, who must camp out, pitches his tent in the grassy coulée or narrow creek-bottom, his first care is to start out with his largest gunning bag to “rustle some buffalo chips” for a campfire.He, at least, when he returns well laden with the spoil of his humble chase, still has good reason to remember the departed herd with feelings of gratitude.Thus even the last remains of this most useful animal are utilized by man in providing for his own imperative wants.

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IX.The Present Value of the Bison to Cattle-Growers.

The bison in captivity and domestication.—Almost from time immemorial it has been known that the American bison takes kindly to captivity, herds contentedly with domestic cattle, and crosses with them with the utmost readiness.It was formerly believed, and indeed the tradition prevails even now to quite an extent, that on account of the hump on the shoulders a domestic cow could not give birth to a half-breed calf.This belief is entirely without foundation, and is due to theories rather than facts.

Numerous experiments in buffalo breeding have been made, and the subject is far from being a new one.As early as 1701 the Huguenot settlers at Manikintown, on the James River, a few miles above Richmond, began to domesticate buffaloes.It is also a matter of historical record that in 1786, or thereabouts, buffaloes were domesticated and bred in captivity in Virginia, and Albert Gallatin states that in some of the northwestern counties the mixed breed was quite common.In 1815 a series of elaborate and valuable experiments in cross-breeding the buffalo and domestic cattle was begun by Mr. Robert Wickliffe, of Lexington, Ky., and continued by him for upwards of thirty years.[49]

Quite recently the buffalo-breeding operations of Mr. S.L.Bedson, of Stony Mountain, Manitoba, and Mr. C.J.Jones, of Garden City, Kans., have attracted much attention, particularly for the reason that the efforts of both these gentlemen have been directed toward the practical improvement of the present breeds of range cattle.For this reason the importance of the work in which they are engaged can hardly be overestimated, and the results already obtained by Mr. Bedson, whose experiments antedate those of Mr. Jones by several years, are of the greatest interest to western cattle-growers.Indeed, unless the stock of pure-blood buffaloes now remaining proves insufficient for the purpose, I fully believe that we will gradually see a great change wrought in the character of western cattle by the introduction of a strain of buffalo blood.

The experiments which have been made thus far prove conclusively that—

(1) The male bison crosses readily with the opposite sex of domestic cattle, but a buffalo cow has never been known to produce a half-breed calf.

(2) The domestic cow produces a half-breed calf successfully.

(3) The progeny of the two species is fertile to any extent, yielding half-breeds, quarter, three-quarter breeds, and so on.

(4) The bison breeds in captivity with perfect regularity and success.

Need of an improvement in range cattle.—Ever since the earliest days of cattle-ranching in the West, stockmen have had it in their power to produce a breed which would equal in beef-bearing qualities the best breeds to be found upon the plains, and be so much better calculated to survive the hardships of winter, that their annual losses would have been very greatly reduced.Whenever there is an unusually severe winter, such as comes about three times in every decade, if not even oftener, range cattle perish by thousands.It is an absolute impossibility for every ranchman who owns several thousand, or even several hundred, head of cattle to provide hay for them, even during the severest portion of the winter season, and consequently the cattle must depend wholly upon their own resources.When the winter is reasonably mild, and the snows never very deep, nor lying too long at a time on the ground, the cattle live through the winter with very satisfactory success.Thanks to the wind, it usually happens that the falling snow is blown off the ridges as fast as it falls, leaving the grass sufficiently uncovered for the cattle to feed upon it.If the snow-fall is universal, but not more than a few inches in depth, the cattle paw through it here and there, and eke out a subsistence, on quarter rations it may be, until a friendly chinook wind sets in from the southwest and dissolves the snow as if by magic in a few hours’ time.

But when a deep snow comes, and lies on the ground persistently, week in and week out, when the warmth of the sun softens and moistens its surface sufficiently for a returning cold wave to freeze it into a hard crust, forming a universal wall of ice between the luckless steer and his only food, the cattle starve and freeze in immense numbers.Being totally unfitted by nature to survive such unnatural conditions, it is not strange that they succumb.

Under present conditions the stockman simply stakes his cattle against the winter elements and takes his chances on the results, which are governed by circumstances wholly beyond his control.The losses of the fearful winter of 1886-’87 will probably never be forgotten by the cattlemen of the great Western grazing ground.In many portions of Montana and Wyoming the cattlemen admitted a loss of 50 per cent of their cattle, and in some localities the loss was still greater.The same conditions are liable to prevail next winter, or any succeeding winter, and we may yet see more than half the range cattle in the West perish in a single month.

Yet all this time the cattlemen have had it in their power, by the easiest and simplest method in the world, to introduce a strain of hardy native blood in their stock which would have made it capable of successfully resisting a much greater degree of hunger and cold.It is really surprising that the desirability of cross-breeding the buffalo and domestic cattle should for so long a time have been either overlooked or disregarded.While cattle-growers generally have shown the greatest enterprise in producing special breeds for milk, for butter, or for beef, cattle with short horns and cattle with no horns at all, only two or three men have had the enterprise to try to produce a breed particularly hardy and capable.

A buffalo can weather storms and outlive hunger and cold which would kill any domestic steer that ever lived. When nature placed him on the treeless and blizzard-swept plains, she left him well equipped to survive whatever natural conditions he would have to encounter. The most striking feature of his entire tout ensemble is his magnificent suit of hair and fur combined, the warmest covering possessed by any quadruped save the musk-ox. The head, neck, and fore quarters are clothed with hide and hair so thick as to be almost, if not entirely, impervious to cold. The hair on the body and hind quarters is long, fine, very thick, and of that peculiar woolly quality which constitutes the best possible protection against cold. Let him who doubts the warmth of a good buffalo robe try to weather a blizzard with something else, and then try the robe. The very form of the buffalo—short, thick legs, and head hung very near the ground—suggests most forcibly a special fitness to wrestle with mother earth for a living, snow or no snow. A buffalo will flounder for days through deep snow-drifts without a morsel of food, and survive where the best range steer would literally freeze on foot, bolt upright, as hundreds did in the winter of 1886-’87. While range cattle turn tail to a blizzard and drift helplessly, the buffalo faces it every time, and remains master of the situation.

It has for years been a surprise to me that Western stockmen have not seized upon the opportunity presented by the presence of the buffalo to improve the character of their cattle.Now that there are no longer any buffalo calves to be had on the plains for the trouble of catching them, and the few domesticated buffaloes that remain are worth fabulous prices, we may expect to see a great deal of interest manifested in this subject, and some costly efforts made to atone for previous lack of forethought.

The character of the buffalo-domestic hybrid.—The subjoined illustration from a photograph kindly furnished by Mr. C.J.Jones, represents a ten months’ old half-breed calf (male), the product of a buffalo bull and domestic cow.The prepotency of the sire is apparent at the first glance, and to so marked an extent that the illustration would pass muster anywhere as having been drawn from a full-blood buffalo.The head, neck, and hump, and the long woolly hair that covers them, proclaim the buffalo in every line.Excepting that the hair on the shoulders (below the hump) is of the same length as that on the body and hind quarters, there is, so far as one can judge from an excellent photograph, no difference whatever observable between this lusty young half-breed and a full blood buffalo calf of the same age and sex.Mr. Jones describes the color of this animal as “iron-gray,” and remarks: “You will see how even the fur is, being as long on the hind parts as on the shoulders and neck, very much unlike the buffalo, which is so shaggy about the shoulders and so thin farther back.”Upon this point it is to be remarked that the hair on the body of a yearling or two year-old buffalo is always very much longer in proportion to the hair on the forward parts than it is later in life, and while the shoulder hair is always decidedly longer than that back of it, during the first two years the contrast is by no means so very great.A reference to the memoranda of hair measurements already given will afford precise data on this point.

In regard to half-breed calves, Mr. Bedson states in a private letter that “the hump does not appear until several months after birth.”

Altogether, the male calf described above so strongly resembles a pure-blood buffalo as to be generally mistaken for one; the form of the adult half-blood cow promptly proclaims her origin. The accompanying plate, also from a photograph supplied by Mr. Jones, accurately represents a half-breed cow, six years old, weighing about 1,800 pounds. Her body is very noticeably larger in proportion than that of the cow buffalo, her pelvis much heavier, broader, and more cow-like, therein being a decided improvement upon the small and weak hind quarters of the wild species. The hump is quite noticeable, but is not nearly so high as in the pure buffalo cow. The hair on the fore quarters, neck, and head is decidedly shorter, especially on the head; the frontlet and chin beard being conspicuously lacking. The tufts of long, coarse, black hair which clothe the fore-arm of the buffalo cow are almost absent, but apparently the hair on the body and hind quarters has lost but little, if any, of its length, density, and fine, furry quality.The horns are decidedly cow-like in their size, length, and curvature.

Half-breed (Buffalo-Domestic) Calf.—Herd of C.J.Jones, Garden City, Kansas.
Drawn by Ernest E. Thompson.

Regarding the general character of the half-breed buffalo, and his herd in general, Mr. Bedson writes me as follows, in a letter dated September 12, 1888:

“The nucleus of my herd consisted of a young buffalo bull and four heifer calves, which I purchased in 1877, and the increase from these few has been most rapid, as will be shown by a tabular statement farther on.

“Success with the breeding of the pure buffalo was followed by experiments in crossing with the domestic animal. This crossing has generally been between a buffalo bull and an ordinary cow, and with the most encouraging results, since it had been contended by many that although the cow might breed a calf from the buffalo, yet it would be at the expense of her life, owing to the hump on a buffalo’s shoulder; but this hump does not appear until several months after birth. This has been proved a fallacy respecting this herd at least, for calving has been attended with no greater percentage of losses than would be experienced in ranching with the ordinary cattle. Buffalo cows and crosses have dropped calves at as low a temperature as 20° below zero, and the calves were sturdy and healthy.

“The half breed resulting from the cross as above mentioned has been again crossed with the thoroughbred buffalo bull, producing a three quarter breed animal closely resembling the buffalo, the head and robe being quite equal, if not superior.The half-breeds are very prolific.The cows drop a calf annually.They are also very hardy indeed, as they take the instinct of the buffalo during the blizzards and storms, and do not drift like native cattle.They remain upon the open prairie during our severest winters, while the thermometer ranges from 30 to 40 degrees below zero, with little or no food except what they rustled on the prairie, and no shelter at all.In nearly all the ranching parts of North America foddering and housing of cattle is imperative in a more or less degree,[50] creating an item of expense felt by all interested in cattle-raising; but the buffalo [half]breed retains all its native hardihood, needs no housing, forages in the deepest snows for its own food, yet becomes easily domesticated, and consequently needs but little herding. Therefore the progeny of the buffalo is easily reared, cheaply fed, and requires no housing in winter; three very essential points in stock-raising.

“They are always in good order, and I consider the meat of the half-breed much preferable to domestic animals, while the robe is very fine indeed, the fur being evened up on the hind parts, the same as on the shoulders. During the history of the herd, accident and other causes have compelled the slaughtering of one or two, and in these instances the carcasses have sold for 18 cents per pound; the hides in their dressed state for $50 to $75 each. A half-breed buffalo ox (four years old, crossed with buffalo bull and Durham cow) was killed last winter, and weighed 1,280 pounds dressed beef. One pure buffalo bull now in my herd weighs fully 2,000 pounds, and a [half]breed bull 1,700 to 1,800 pounds.

“The three-quarter breed is an enormous animal in size, and has an extra good robe, which will readily bring $40 to $50 in any market where there is a demand for robes.They are also very prolific, and I consider them the coming cattle for our range cattle for the Northern climate, while the half and quarter breeds will be the animals for the more Southern district.The half and three-quarter breed cows, when really matured, will weigh from 1,400 to 1,800 pounds.

“I have never crossed them except with a common grade of cows, while I believe a cross with the Galloways would produce the handsomest robe ever handled, and make the best range cattle in the world.I have not had time to give my attention to my herd, more than to let them range on the prairies at will.By proper care great results can be accomplished.”

Hon.C.J.Jones, of Garden City, Kans., whose years of experience with the buffalo, both as old-time hunter, catcher, and breeder, has earned for him the sobriquet of “Buffalo Jones,” five years ago became deeply interested in the question of improving range cattle by crossing with the buffalo.With characteristic Western energy he has pursued the subject from that time until the present, having made five trips to the range of the only buffaloes remaining from the great southern herd, and captured sixty-eight buffalo calves and eleven adult cows with which to start a herd.In a short article published in the Farmers’ Review (Chicago, August 22, 1888), Mr. Jones gives his views on the value of the buffalo in cross-breeding as follows:

“In all my meanderings I have not found a place but I could count more carcasses [of cattle] than living animals.Who has not ridden over some of the Western railways and counted dead cattle by the thousands?The great question is, Where can we get a race of cattle that will stand blizzards, and endure the drifting snow, and will not be driven with the storms against the railroad fences and pasture fences, there to perish for the want of nerve to face the northern winds for a few miles, to where the winter grasses could be had in abundance?Realizing these facts, both from observation and pocket, we pulled on our ‘thinking cap,’ and these points came vividly to our mind:

“(1) We want an animal that is hardy.

“(2) We want an animal with nerve and endurance.

“(3) We want an animal that faces the blizzards and endures the storms.

“(4) We want an animal that will rustle the prairies, and not yield to discouragement.

“(5) We want an animal that will fill the above bill, and make good beef and plenty of it.