The Extermination of the American Bison

by William T. Hornaday

On September 24 I arrived at Miles City a second time, fully equipped for a protracted hunt for buffalo; this time accompanied only by W. Harvey Brown, a student of the University of Kansas, as field assistant, having previously engaged three cowboys as guides and hunters—Irwin Boyd, James McNaney, and L. S. Russell. Messrs. Boyd and Russell were in Miles City awaiting my arrival, and Mr. McNaney joined us in the field a few days later. Mr. Boyd acted as my foreman during the entire hunt, a position which he filled to my entire satisfaction.

Thanks to the energy and good-will of the officers at Fort Keogh, of which Lieutenant-Colonel Cochran was then in command, our transportation, camp equipage, and stores were furnished without an hour’s delay. We purchased two months’ supplies of commissary stores, a team, and two saddle-horses, and hired three more horses, a light wagon, and a set of double harness. Each of the cowboys furnished one horse; so that in our outfit we had ten head, a team, and two good saddle-horses for each hunter. The worst feature of the whole question of subsistence was the absolute necessity of hauling a supply of grain from Miles City into the heart of the buffalo country for our ten horses. For such work as they had to encounter it was necessary to feed them constantly and liberally with oats in order to keep them in condition to do their work. We took with us 2,000 pounds of oats, and by the beginning of November as much more had to be hauled up to us.

Thirty six hours after our arrival in Miles City our outfit was complete, and we crossed the Yellowstone and started up the Sunday Creek trail. We had from Fort Keogh a six-mule team, an escort of four men, in charge of Sergeant Bayliss, and an old veteran of more than twenty years’ service, from the Fifth Infantry, Private Patrick McCanna, who was detailed to act as cook and camp-guard for our party during our stay in the field.

On September 29 we reached Tow’s ranch, the HV, on Big Dry Creek (erroneously called Big Timber Creek on most maps of Montana), at the mouth of Sand Creek, which here flows into it from the southwest. This point is said to be 90 miles from Miles City. Here we received our freight from the six-mule wagon, loaded it with bleached skeletons and skulls of buffalo, and started it back to the post. One member of the escort, Private C. S. West, who was then on two months’ furlough, elected to join our party for the hunt, and accordingly remained with us to its close. Leaving half of our freight stored at the HV ranch, we loaded the remainder upon our own wagon, and started up Sand Creek.

Sketch Map of the Hunt for Buffalo. Montana 1886.

At this point the hunt began. As the wagon and extra horses proceeded up the Sand Creek trail in the care of W. Harvey Brown, the three cowboys and I paired off, and while two hunted through the country along the south side of the creek, the others took the north. The whole of the country bordering Sand Creek, quite up to its source, consists of rugged hills and ridges, which sometimes rise to considerable height, cut between by great yawning ravines and hollows, such as persecuted game loves to seek shelter in. Inasmuch as the buffalo we were in search of had been seen hiding in those ravines, it became necessary to search through them with systematic thoroughness; a proceeding which was very wearing upon our horses. Along the south side of Sand Creek, near its source, the divide between it and Little Dry Creek culminates in a chain of high, flat-topped buttes, whose summits bear a scanty growth of stunted pines, which serve to make them conspicuous landmarks. On some maps these insignificant little buttes are shown as mountains, under the name of “Piny Buttes.”

It was our intention to go to the head of Sand Creek, and beyond, in case buffaloes were not found earlier. Immediately westward of its source there is a lofty level plateau, about 3 miles square, which, by common consent, we called the High Divide. It is the highest ground anywhere between the Big Dry and the Yellowstone, and is the starting point of streams that run northward into the Missouri and Big Dry, eastward into Sand Creek and the Little Dry, southward into Porcupine Creek and the Yellowstone, and westward into the Musselshell. On three sides—north, east, and south—it is surrounded by wild and rugged butte country, and its sides are scored by intricate systems of great yawning ravines and hollows, steep-sided and very deep, and bad lands of the worst description.

By the 12th of October the hunt had progressed up Sand Creek to its source, and westward across the High Divide to Calf Creek, where we found a hole of wretchedly bad water and went into permanent camp. We considered that the spot we selected would serve us as a key to the promising country that lay on three sides of it, and our surmise that the buffalo were in the habit of hiding in the heads of those great ravines around the High Divide soon proved to be correct. Our camp at the head of Calf Creek was about 20 miles east of the Musselshell River, 40 miles south of the Missouri, and about 135 miles from Miles City, as the trail ran. Four miles north of us, also on Calf Creek, was the line camp of the STV ranch, owned by Messrs. J. H. Conrad & Co., and 18 miles east, near the head of Sand Creek, was the line camp of the N-bar ranch, owned by Mr. Newman. At each of these camps there were generally from two to four cowboys. From all these gentlemen we received the utmost courtesy and hospitality on all occasions, and all the information in regard to buffalo which it was in their power to give. On many occasions they rendered us valuable assistance, which is hereby gratefully acknowledged.