This winter Palliser witnessed a fight between the Sioux and the Assiniboines which seems to have resulted in a draw, though one Sioux was killed. These Sioux, by the way, were very troublesome and had shot many of the milch cows, and, more serious than all, a fine thoroughbred bull which belonged at the post.
“The loss of this handsome, noble animal was universally regretted in the fort, for besides his great value as their only means of continuing the breed of domestic cattle in that remote region, he proved most useful in drawing home many a heavy load of meat, and much of the wood for the fuel in the fort; as a tribute to his memory, I must here record a single combat of his with a bison, which, according to the description of his keeper, ‘Black Joseph,’ must have been truly Homeric.
“About three months previous to my arrival at Fort Union, and in the height of the buffalo breeding season, when their bulls are sometimes very fierce, Joe was taking the Fort Union bull, with a cart, into a point on the river above the fort, in order to draw home a load of wood, which had been previously cut and piled ready for transportation the day before, when a very large old bison bull stood right in the cart track, pawing up the earth, and roaring, ready to dispute the passage with him. On a nearer approach, instead of flying at the sight of the man that accompanied the cart, the bison made a headlong charge. Joe had barely time to remove his bull’s head-stall and escape up a tree, being utterly unable to assist his four-footed friend, whom he left to his own resources. Bison and bull, now in mortal combat, met midway with a shock that made the earth tremble. Our previously docile gentle animal suddenly became transformed into a furious beast, springing from side to side, whirling round as the buffalo attempted to take him in flank, alternately upsetting and righting the cart again, which he banged from side to side, and whirled about as if it had been a band-box. Joe, safe out of harm’s way, looked down from the tree at his champion’s proceedings, at first deploring the apparent disadvantage he laboured under, from being harnessed to a cart; but when the fight had lasted long and furious, and it was evident that both combatants had determined that one or other of them must fall, his eyes were opened to the value of the protection afforded by the harness, and especially by the thick strong shafts of the cart against the short horns of the bison, who, although he bore him over and over again down on his haunches, could not wound him severely. On the other hand, the long sharp horns of the brave Fort Union bull began to tell on the furrowed sides of his antagonist, until the final charge brought the bison, with a furious bound, dead under our hero’s feet, whose long fine-drawn horn was deep driven into his adversary’s heart. With a cheer that made the woods ring again, down clambered Joe, and while triumphantly caressing, also carefully examined his chivalrous companion, who, although bruised, blown, and covered with foam, had escaped uninjured.
“It required all Joe’s nigger eloquence to persuade the bull to leave the slain antagonist, over whom he long stood watching, evidently expecting him to get up again to renew the combat, Joe all the time coaxing him forward with, ‘Him dear good bull, him go home now, and do no more work to-day,’ which prospect, black Joe, in common with all his sable brethren, considered as the acme of sublunary felicity.”
During this winter the people at Fort Union were attacked by an epidemic which laid up many of them. Those who were not incapacitated by illness were, therefore, obliged to hunt the harder to supply the post with food, for in that country and at that time food meant meat almost exclusively. Buffalo-running in winter is often hard work, and when to the winter weather are added the difficulties of deep snow, the work becomes not only hard but dangerous. Some incidents of a winter run are given in Palliser’s account of his killing some meat four or five miles from the post. He “had a splendid run, flooring a cow and wounding a bull, which I left for the present, and then stretching away at full speed, I pursued after another uncommonly fine fat cow. She gave me an awful chase, turning and doubling incessantly. My little horse was sorely at a disadvantage in the snow and began to show symptoms of distress; but I could not manage to get a broadside shot. At last making one more push, I got pretty close behind her and raising myself in my stirrups fired down upon her.... She dropped at the report, the bullet breaking her spine. My little horse, unable to stop himself, rolled right over her, making a complete somersault, and sending me, gun and all, flying clean over both of them into a snowdrift. I leaped up, ran back to my horse, which I caught without much difficulty, and was glad to find no more hurt than myself. My gun was filled with snow, of course, but otherwise uninjured.”
The friendly relations between the domestic cattle and the buffalo caused Palliser much surprise, for he was unaware that cattle and buffalo associate intimately and sometimes interbreed.
Cases have been recorded where buffalo in their stampede have carried off considerable numbers of cattle, which became as wild as the buffalo with which they associated. Another point new to Palliser, and perhaps not well understood by naturalists at present, is the fact that buffalo do not, as a rule, use their hoofs to remove the snow from the ground, but push the snow aside with the nose. Palliser says: “I was still more astonished, on attentively observing this friendly intercourse, to see our little calves apparently preferring the companionship of the bison, particularly that of the most colossal bulls, to that of their own species. I took an opportunity one morning of investigating the reason of this more closely, and availing myself of some broken ground, beyond which I saw three of our poor little half-starved calves in company with two gigantic bulls, I crept up very carefully, and lay under the brow of a hill, not fifty yards from the nearest in order to observe them, and was not long in discovering that the bison has the power of removing the snow with his admirably-shaped shovel-nose so as to obtain the grass underneath it. His little companions, unable to remove the frozen obstacle for themselves, were thankfully and fearlessly feeding in his wake; the little heads of two of them visible every now and then, contesting an exposed morsel under his very beard. It was an interesting sight, and I crept softly away again, so as not to disturb them.
“Although the bison scrapes the snow with his nose, I do not think he does so with his hoofs. I have frequently seen the snow, where buffalo have been feeding, stained with slight signs of blood, and after having shot them, found the noses of both cow and bull sore from the constant shovelling.”
Buffalo-hunting was not without its excitement. On a certain day, for example, with an Indian, he killed three bulls, one of which was shot four times, and though seeming very weak did not fall, so that Palliser determined to finish him.
“Walking up therefore to within thirty paces of him, till I could actually see his eyes rolling, I fired for the fourth time directly at the region of the heart, as I thought, but to my utter amazement up went his tail and down went his head, and with a speed that I thought him little capable of, he was upon me in a twinkling. I ran hard for it but he rapidly overhauled me, and my situation was becoming anything but pleasant. Thinking he might, like our own bulls, shut the eyes in making a charge, I swerved suddenly to one side to escape the shock, but, to my horror, I failed in dodging him, for he bolted round quicker than I did, and affording me barely time to protect my stomach with the stock of my rifle, and to turn myself sideways as I sustained the charge, in the hopes of getting between his horns, he came plump upon me with a shock like an earthquake. My rifle-stock was shivered to pieces by one horn, my clothes torn by the other; I flew into mid-air, scattering my prairie-hens and rabbits, which had hitherto hung dangling by leathern thongs from my belt, in all directions, till landing at last, I fell unhurt in the snow, and almost over me—fortunately not quite—rolled my infuriated antagonist, and subsided in a snowdrift. I was luckily not the least injured, the force of the blow having been perfectly deadened by the enormous mass of fur, wool, and hair, that clothed his shaggy head-piece.”