In riding over the green turf of the open country, one sees everywhere white objects which so reflect the strong sunshine that they almost dazzle the eye. These are the bleaching skulls of the buffaloes that used to roam in thousands through this region. Every one has read how, only fifty years ago, millions of buffaloes wandered over nearly half of the United States; now there are no great herds except in the Territory of Montana, and from that territory more than a hundred thousand skins have been sent to the East in a year. For nearly every skin that is sent away, about half a ton of fine meat is left to decay on the prairie. It is a reckless waste of animal life, and I am sorry to say that our government does very little to stop it. Within ten years there will be no more great herds of buffaloes in the United States. Small bands of them will linger hidden away in valleys, but by the time some boys who read this have lived to be old men, the American bison will probably be seen only where it is kept as a curiosity; just as the one little band of aurochs—the last descendants of the wild cattle which used to roam over all Europe—is kept by the Emperor of Russia. Still, even now, at times, single buffaloes or small bands of them will wander back here to their old grazing-grounds. Last summer a party of hay-makers saw a band of a dozen or more in a remote valley behind the peak. And a few days later, one of our neighbors at the nearest ranch, beyond the mountains, was sitting in the doorway of his snug home one morning, after an early breakfast, when to his astonishment, a great buffalo bull came trotting easily along within a hundred yards of the door. He would hardly have been more surprised had an elephant or a rhinoceros happened in for a morning call; for he had never seen a buffalo, nor had he ever expected to see one at his own ranch. But his surprise left him breath enough to shout, "A buffalo! a buffalo!" The house was full of men just in from the work of gathering beef-cattle for shipment; and at the startling word, every man seized the nearest rifle or pistol or shot-gun, and dashed away to join the chase; only one or two stopping hastily to throw a saddle on a horse. As soon as the chase began, the big beast ran swiftly into the thicket along the creek, and was able to keep out of sight for some time. The chase was long and exciting, but the buffalo's pursuers were too many for him. Some followed up his trail, while others watched the outskirts of the thicket; and at last one of the best marksmen among them, catching sight of the big black body, took a quick line aim and brought the buffalo down with a single bullet; so all the inhabitants of the ranch were feasted with buffalo-meat as long as it could be kept from spoiling. But where the great herds range, there is no such excitement about killing them.
One day a young fellow from the East was listening eagerly with me to the yarns of an old buffalo-hunter, and as the hunter finished his story, the young man said:
"It must be tremendously exciting sport, John!"
"Well, I'll tell you how it is," said John. "It's about as exciting as if you were to go out into the corral and shoot a dozen of those old dairy-cows with a pistol."
With a swift horse, trained to the business, and a heavy revolver, a man who can aim truly may often ride into a herd of buffaloes, overtaking them one by one when they are running their hardest, and, riding close beside them, can put his bullets into the hearts of dozens of them in a single day's hunt. That is the reason why the bison is the first of all the wild animals to disappear at the approach of civilized man—it can not possibly escape from a swift horseman.
“A COLONY OF BEAVERS.”
The most abundant game animals among the mountains are the deer. The white-tailed deer is small and much like the antelope in color, but has a far more sleek and handsome coat. The black-tailed or mule deer is twice as large as its white-tailed cousin, and wears a quaker-colored coat, which in summer is tinged with brown. Sometimes, on horseback, I have met the deer in the mountains without giving them any alarm, and we have stood and gazed at one another at our leisure, just to satisfy curiosity. But they know that a man on foot or carrying a rifle is a dangerous creature, and they never stop long to look at him. Usually, even before the hunter catches sight of them, they have seen him. They do not bound away through the forest with a jump and a crash; but, even if taken by surprise, they vanish away between the yellow trunks of the pines as silently as the shadow of the low swooping vulture slides across the grass. They dart so noiselessly through the dark woods that in the distance they seem more like a troop of flying spirits than a herd of animals.
HEAD OF A MULE DEER.