This day's killing by the party was large, and supplied all their wants as to meat, skins, and sport. The next few days were devoted to jerking meat, dressing and drying skins, and preparing for the return journey, and in ten days from the date of their arrival on the hunting ground, the teams were all loaded up, camp was broken, and the homeward march was begun, which progressed uneventfully from day to day, and was made in safety in about the same time occupied in going out.
Twice during the hunt the party were alarmed by the discovery of Indians lurking about their camp, late in the night. The guards discovered them in both instances, and fired on them, when they beat a hasty retreat and disappeared in the darkness. It was not known that their object was anything worse than pilfering, and yet there was little doubt that had they found the party all off guard and asleep, a massacre would have resulted. But, true to their aboriginal instincts, they did not wish to engage in a fight with a formidable foe, whom they found ever ready for such an emergency.
PROWLERS.
Such scenes and such sport as this party enjoyed were common almost anywhere on the great plains west of the Missouri river up to a few years ago. Herds of buffalo extending over a tract of land, as large as one of the New England States, and numbering hundreds of thousands of heads, might be found any day in what was then "buffalo country." An army officer told me that, when crossing the plains in 1867 with a company of cavalry, he encountered a herd that it took his command three days to ride through, marching about thirty miles a day.
When two of our transcontinental railways were first built it was no uncommon thing for herds of buffalo to delay trains for several hours in crossing the tracks, the animals being packed in so close together that the train could not force a passage through them.
But, alas, those days are passed forever. This noble creature, provided to feed the human multitude who should people the prairies, is to-day practically extinct; slaughtered and annihilated by that jackal of the plains, that coyote in human shape, the "skin hunter." Hundreds of thousands of buffaloes were annually killed, their skins sold at from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half each, and the meat which, when properly taken care of, is equal, if not superior, to the finest domestic beef, was left to rot on the ground.
There are scarcely a hundred buffaloes left on the continent to day in their wild state. A very few stragglers are known to be in the Panhandle of Texas, a small bunch in the Yellowstone National Park, and a few in the British Northwest, but they are being remorselessly pursued by large numbers of hunters, and it is safe to say that a year hence not one will be left in the whole broad West unless it be those in the park, and they will escape only in case they stay within the park limits where they are protected by United States soldiers. Should they ever stray beyond the bounds of the park they will all be killed in less than a week.
Several small bunches have been domesticated by Western cattlemen, and it is hoped the species may, by this means, be saved from total extinction. They are being successfully cross-bred with domestic cattle, and an excellent strain of stock is thus produced, but the grand herds that for ages roamed at will over the great plains are a thing of the past.
