THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN’S LIBRARY

EDITED BY
CASPAR WHITNEY

MUSK-OX, BISON, SHEEP
AND GOAT

MUSK-OX, BISON, SHEEP
AND GOAT

BY
CASPAR WHITNEY
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
AND
OWEN WISTER

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1904

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1904,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, electrotyped, and published February, 1904.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE MUSK-OX AND ITS HUNTING

By Caspar Whitney

IN THE FAR NORTH

I
My First Kill

We had passed through the “Land of Little Sticks,” as the Indians so appropriately call that desolate waste which connects the edge of timber land with the Barren Grounds, and had been for several days making our way north on the lookout for any living thing that would provide us with a mouthful of food.

We had got into one of those pieces of this great barren area, which, broken by rocky ridges, of no great height but of frequent occurrence, are unspeakably harassing to the travelling snow-shoer. It was the third twelve hours of our fast, save for tea and the pipe, and all day we had been dragging ourselves wearily up one ridge and down another in the ever recurring and always disappointed hope that on each we should sight caribou or musk-oxen. The Indians were discouraged and sullen, as they usually did become on such occasions; and this troubled me really more than not finding food, for I was in constant dread of their growing disheartened and turning back to the woods. That was the possibility which, since the very starting day, had at all times and most seriously menaced the success of my venture; because we were pushing on in the early part of March, at a time when the storms are at their greatest severity, and when none had ever before ventured into the Barren Grounds. Therefore, in my fear lest the Indians turn back, I sought to make light of our difficulties by breaking into song when we stopped to “spell”[1] our dogs, hoping by my assumed light-heartedness to shame the Indians out of showing their desire to turn homeward.

How much I felt like singing may be imagined.

So the day dragged on without sight of a moving creature, not even a fox, and it was past noon when we laboriously worked our way up one particular ridge which seemed to have an unusual amount of unnecessary and ragged rock strewn over its surface. I remember we scarcely ventured to look into the white silent country that stretched in front of us; disappointment had rewarded our long searchings so often that we had somehow come to accept it as a matter of course. Squatting down back of the sledge in shelter from the wind seemed of more immediate concern than looking ahead for meat: at least we were sure of the solace our pipes gave. Thus we smoked in silence, with no sign of interest in what the immediate country ahead might hold for us, until Beniah, the leader of my Indians, and an unusually good one, started to his feet with an exclamation and, hurriedly climbing on top a good-sized rock, stretched his arm ahead, obviously much stirred with excitement. He shouted, once and loud, “ethan,”[2] and then continued mumbling it as though to make his tongue sure of what his eyes beheld. We all gathered around him, climbing his rock or on other ones, in desperate earnestness to see what he saw in the direction he continued pointing. It was minutes before I could discern anything having life in the distance which reached away to the horizon all white and silent, and then I detected a kind of vapor arising apparently from some dark objects blurringly outlined against the snow about four miles away; it was the mist which arises from a herd of animals where the mercury is ranging between sixty and seventy degrees below zero, and on a clear day may be seen five miles away. Thoroughly aroused now, I got my field-glasses from my sledge and searched the dark objects under the mist. They were not caribou, of that I was certain; as to what they were I was equally uncertain, for the forms were strange to my eye. So I handed the glasses to Beniah, saying, “ethan illa.”[3] Beniah took the glasses, but as it was the first time he had ever looked through a pair, their range and power seemed to excite him quite as much as did the appearance of the game itself. When he did find his tongue, he fairly shouted, “ejerri.”[4] I had no accurate knowledge of what “ejerri” meant, but assumed we had sighted musk-oxen. Instantly all was excitement. The Indians set up a yell and rushed for their sledges, jabbering and laughing. It seemed incredible that these were the same men who so shortly before had sat silent with backs to the wind, dejected and indifferent.

Every one now busied himself turning loose his dogs,—a small matter for the Indians, with their simply sewn harness from which the dogs were easily slipped, but a rather complex job for me. My dog train had come from the Post, and its harness was made of buckles and straps and things not easily undone in freezing weather; so it happened that by the time my dogs were unhitched, the Indians and all their dogs were fully quarter of a mile nearer the musk-oxen than I and running for very dear life. My preconceived notions of the musk-ox hunting game were in a jiffy jolted to the point of destruction, as I now found myself in a situation neither expected nor joyful. It was natural to suppose some assistance would be given me in this strange environment, and that the consideration of a party of my own organizing and my own paying should be my killing the musk-ox for which I had come so long a distance. But we were a long way from the Post and interpreters and restraining influences; and at this moment of readjustment I speedily realized that it was to be a survival of the fittest on this expedition, and if I got a musk-ox it would be of my own getting. It comforted me to know that, even though somewhat tucked up as to stomach, due to three days’ hard travel on only tea, I was in fine physical condition, and up to making the effort of my life.

By the time I had run about two miles I had caught the last of the Indians, who were stretched out in a long column, with two leading by half a mile. Within another mile I had passed all the stragglers, and was running practically even with the second Indian, who was two or three hundred yards behind the leading one. This Indian, Seco by name, was one of the best snow-shoe runners I ever encountered. He gave evidence of his endurance and speed on many another occasion than this one, for always there was a run of four miles or more after every musk-ox herd we sighted, and invariably a foot-race between Seco and me preceded final leadership. I may add incidentally that he always beat me, although we made some close finishes during the fifty-seven days we roamed this God-forgotten bit of the earth.

On this particular day, though I passed the second Indian, Seco kept well in the lead, with practically all the dogs just ahead of him. It was the roughest going I had ever experienced, for the course lay over a succession of low but sharp, rocky ridges covered with about a foot of snow, and, on the narrow tripping shoes used in the Barren Grounds, I broke through the crust where it was soft, or jammed my shoes between the wind-swept rocks that lay close together, or caught in those I attempted to clear in my stride. It was a species of hurdle racing to test the bottom of a well-fed, conditioned athlete; how it wore on a tea diet I need not say.

After we had been running for about an hour, it seemed to me as though we should never see the musk-oxen. Ridge after ridge we crossed and yet not a sight of the coveted quarry. Seco still held a lead of about one hundred yards, and I remember I wondered in my growing fatigue why on earth that Indian maintained such a pace, for I could not help feeling that when the musk-oxen finally had been caught up, he would stop until I, and all the Indians and all the dogs had come up, so as to more certainly assure the success of the hunt: but it was not the first time I had been with Indian hunters, and I knew well enough not to take any chances.

In another half hour’s running, as I worked up the near side of a rather higher and broader ridge than any we had crossed, I heard the dogs barking, and speeding to the top, what was my disappointment, not to say distress, at beholding twenty-five to thirty musk-oxen just startled into running along a ridge about a quarter of a mile beyond Seco, who, with his dogs, was in full chase after them about fifty yards ahead of me. What I thought at that time of the Northland Indian hunting methods, and of Seco and all my other Indians in particular, did the situation and my condition of mind scant justice then—and would not make goodly reading here. Had I been on an ordinary hunting expedition, disgust with the whole fool business would, I doubt not, have been paramount, but the thought of the distance I had come and the privations undergone for no other reason than to get a musk-ox, made me the more determined to succeed despite obstacles of any and all kinds. So I went on. The wind was blowing a gale from the south when I reached the top of the ridge along which I had seen the musk-oxen run, and the main herd had disappeared over the northern end of it, and were a mile away to the north, travelling with heads carried well out, though not lowered, at an astonishing pace and ease over the rocks. Four had separated from the main body and were going almost due east on the south side of the ridge. I determined to stalk these four, because I could keep the north side of the ridge, out of sight, and to leeward, feeling certain they would sooner or later turn north to rejoin the main herd. It seemed my best chance. I perfectly realized the risk I ran in separating from the Indians; but at that moment nothing appeared so important as getting a musk-ox, for which I had now travelled nearly twelve hundred miles on snow-shoes.

I have done a deal of hunting in my life, over widely separated and trackless sections, and had my full share of hard trips; but never shall I forget the run along that ridge. It called for more heart and more strength than any situation I ever faced. Already I had run, I suppose, about five miles when I started after those four musk-oxen; and when the first enthusiasm had passed, it seemed as though I must give it up. Such fatigue I had never dreamed of. I have no idea how much farther I ran,—three or four more miles, likely,—but I do remember that after a time the fancy possessed me that those four musk-oxen and I were alone on earth, that they knew I was after their heads, and were luring me deep into a strange land to lose me; thus in the great silent land we raced grimly, with death trailing the steps of each. The dead-white surface reaching out before me without ending seemed to rise and to fall as though I travelled a rocking ship; and the snow and the rocks danced around my whirling head in a grinning, glistening maze. When I fell, which frequently I did, it seemed such a long time before I again stood on my feet; and what I saw appeared as though seen through the small end of field-glasses.

I was in a dripping perspiration and had dropped my fur capote and cartridge-belt after thrusting half a dozen shells into my pocket. On and on I ran, wondering in a semi-dazed way if the musk-oxen were really on the other side of the ridge. Finally the ridge took a sharp turn to the north, and as I reached the top of it, there—about one hundred yards ahead—were two of the musk-oxen running slowly but directly from me. Instantly the blood coursed through my veins and the mist cleared from my eyes; dropping on one knee I swung my rifle into position, but my hand was so tremulous and my heart thumped so heavily that the front sight wobbled all over the horizon. I realized that this might be the only shot I should get,—for Indians had gone into the Barren Grounds in more propitious seasons, and not seen even one herd,—yet with the musk-oxen going away from me all the while, every instant of time seemed an insuperable age. The agony of those few seconds I waited so as to steady my hand! Once or twice I made another attempt to aim, but still the hand was too uncertain. I did not dare risk a shot. When I had rested a minute or two, that seemed fully half an hour,—at last the fore sight held true for an instant; and I pressed the trigger.

The exultation of that moment when I saw one of the two musk-oxen stagger, and then fall, I know I shall never again experience.

The report of my rifle startled the other musk-ox into a wild gallop over a ridge, and I followed as rapidly as I could, so soon as I made sure that the other was really down. As I went over the ridge I caught sight of the remaining musk-ox, and shot simultaneously with two reports on my left, which I later discovered to have come from the second Indian whom I had passed in closing upon Seco on the run to the first view of the musk-oxen, and who now hove in sight with one dog, as the second musk-ox dropped.

I found on returning to my kill that it was a cow, needless to say a sore disappointment; and so, although pretty well tuckered out, I again started to the north in the hope that I might get wind of the other two of the four after which I had originally started, or find tracks of stragglers from the main herd. Several miles I went on, but finding no tracks, and darkness coming down, I turned to make my way back, knowing that the Indians would follow up and camp by the slain musk-oxen for the night. But as I journeyed I suddenly realized that, except for going in a southerly direction, I really had no definite idea of the exact direction in which I was travelling, and with night setting in and a chilling wind blowing I knew that to lose myself might easily mean death. So I turned about on my tracks and followed them back first to where I had turned south, and thence on my back tracks to where the musk-ox lay. It was a long and puzzling task, for the wind had always partly, and for distances entirely, obliterated the earlier marks of my snow-shoes.

Nine o’clock came before I finally reached the place where the dead quarry lay; and there I found the Indians gnawing on raw and half-frozen musk-ox fat. Seco, badly frozen and hardly able to crawl from fatigue, did not turn up until midnight; and it was not until he arrived that we lighted our little fire of sticks and had our tea.

AT BAY

Then in a sixty-seven degrees below zero temperature we rolled up in our furs, while the dogs howled and fought over the carcass of my first musk-ox.

II
The Provision Question

Except in the summer, when the caribou are running in vast herds, venture into the Barren Grounds entails a struggle with both cold and hunger. It is either a feast or a famine; more frequently the latter than the former. So there was nothing extraordinary in being upon our third day without food at the first musk-ox killing to which I have referred. Yet the lack of nourishment was not perhaps as trying as the wind, which seemed to sweep directly from the frozen seas, so strong that we had to bend low in pushing forward against it, and so bitter as to cut our faces cruelly. Throughout my journey into this silent land of the lone North the wind caused me more real suffering than the semi-starvation state in which we were more or less continuously. Indeed, for the first few weeks I had utmost difficulty in travelling; the wind appeared to take the very breath out of my body and the activity out of my muscles. I was physically in magnificent shape, for I had spent a couple of weeks at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, and what with plenty of caribou meat and a daily run of from ten to twenty miles on snow-shoes by way of keeping in training, I was about as fit as I have been at any time in my life. Therefore the severe struggle with the wind impressed me the more. But the novelty wore off in a couple of weeks, and though the conditions were always trying, they became more endurable as I grew accustomed to the daily combat.

One of the first lessons I learned was to keep my face free from covering, and also as clean shaven as was possible under such circumstances. It makes me smile now to remember the elaborate hood arrangement which was knitted for me in Canada, and that then seemed to me one of the most important articles of my equipment. It covered the entire head, ears, and neck, with openings only for eyes and mouth, and in town I had viewed it as a great find; but I threw it away before I got within a thousand miles of the Barren Grounds. The reason is obvious: my breath turned the front of the hood into a sheet of ice before I had run three miles; and as there was no fire in the Barren Grounds to thaw it, of course it was an impossible thing to wear in that region and a poor thing in any region of low temperature. After other experiments, I found the simplest and most comfortable head-gear to be my own long hair, which hung even with my jaw, bound about just above the ears by a handkerchief, and the open hood of my caribou-skin capote drawn forward over all.

I learned a great many things about hunting the musk-ox on this first effort, and not the least memorable was the lesson of how very difficult an animal it is to score on without the aid of a dog. This is solely due to the lie of the land. The physical character of the Barren Grounds is of the rolling or prairie type. Standing on the first elevation after passing beyond the last timber, you look north across a great expanse of desert, apparently flat country dotted with lakes innumerable, and broken here and there by rock-topped ridges. When you get actually into the country, you find these ridges, though not high, are yet higher than they look to be, and the travelling in general very rough. In summer there is no travel over the Barren Grounds, except by canoe; for barring the generous deposit of broken rock, it is practically a vast swamp. In the winter, of course, this is frozen over and topped by a foot or a foot and a half of snow. It was a surprise to find no greater depth of snow, but the fall is light in the very far North, and the continuous gales pack and blow it so that what remains on the ground is firm as earth. For that reason the snow-shoes used in the Barren Grounds are of the smallest pattern used anywhere. They are from six to eight inches wide, three feet long, and, because of the dry character of the snow, have rather closer lacing than any other shoe. This is the shoe used also throughout the Athabasca-Slave-Mackenzie River sections. The snow nowhere along this line of travel is over a couple of feet in depth, is light and dry and the “tripping” shoe, so called, is the very best possible for such kind of going. In the spring, when the snow is a little heavier, the lacing is more open, otherwise the shoe is unchanged.

It is well known, I suppose, that the Barren Grounds are devoid absolutely not only of trees but even of brush, except for some scattered, stunted bushes that in summer are to be found in occasional spots at the water’s edge, but may not be depended upon for fuel. From Great Slave Lake north to the timber’s edge is about three hundred miles; beyond that is a stretch of country perhaps of another hundred miles, suggestively called the Land of Little Sticks by the Indians, over which are scattered and widely separated little patches of small pine, sometimes of an acre in extent, sometimes a little less and sometimes a little more. They seem to be a chain of wooded islands in this desert that connect the main timber line (which, by the way, does not end abruptly, but straggles out for many miles, growing thinner and thinner until it ends, and the Land of Little Sticks begins) with the last free growth; and I never found them nearer together than a good day’s journey. About three or four days’ travel takes you through this Land of Little Sticks and brings you to the last wood. The last wood that I found was a patch of about four or five acres with trees two or three inches in diameter at their largest, although one or two isolated ones were perhaps as large as five or six inches. Here you take the fire-wood for your trip into the Barrens.

I have been often asked why the periods of starvation experienced in musk-ox hunting could not be obviated by carrying food. I have been asked, in a word, why I did not haul supplies. The patent answer is that, in the first place, I had none to take; and that, in the second place, if I had had a car-load at Great Slave Lake to draw upon, I would have been unable to carry provisions with me into the Barren Grounds. It is to be remembered that Great Slave Lake, where I outfitted for the Barren Grounds, is nine hundred miles from the railroad, that every pound of provision is freighted by water usually, or by dog sledge on emergency. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s posts, beginning at Athabasca Landing, are located along the great waterways—Athabasca, Slave, Mackenzie rivers—about every two hundred miles. These are small trading posts, having powder and ball, and things to wear, and of ornament, rather than things to eat. Provisions are taken in, but to a limited extent, and there is never a winter which does not see the end of the company’s supplies before the ice breaks up and the first boat of the year arrives. There is never a plenty even for the usual demand, and an unusual demand, if it is to be met, means a trimming all round. In snow-shoeing from the railroad to Great Slave Lake I secured fresh sledge-dogs and men and provisions at every post, which carried me to the next post north, whence men and dogs returned to their own post, while I continued north with a new supply. Although there was comparative plenty at the time of my trip, so carefully are the stores husbanded that I never could get supplies more than just enough to carry me to the next post; and these were invariably skimped, so that for a five days’ journey I habitually started with about four days’ supplies.

Thus it is easy to see why there were no provisions at Great Slave Lake for me to draw on; and, as I have said, had there been an abundance, it would have been impossible for me to carry them (and would be equally so for any one else venturing into the Barren Grounds at the same season of the year) simply for lack of transportation, which, after all, is the great problem of this North Country. One would think that in a land where the only means of travel for most of the year, where almost the very existence of the people depends so largely on sledge-dogs, there would be an abundance of them and of the best breed; yet the truth is that sledge-dogs of any kind are scarce even on the river thoroughfares. At the company’s posts there is not more than one, or at the most two, spare trains; among the Indians, upon whom, of course, I had to rely when I outfitted for the Barren Grounds, dogs are even scarcer. Fort Resolution is one of the most important posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company in all that great country, and yet the settlement itself is very small, numbering perhaps fifty; the Indians—Dog Ribs and Yellow Knives—living in the woods from six to ten days’ travel from the post. I found it not only extremely difficult to get Indians to go with me, but secured seven dog teams only after widest search. This reads strange, I am sure, yet it was all but impossible for me to secure the number of dogs and sledges required for my trip.

But, some of my friends have asked, with seven sledges and twenty-eight dogs, surely there was room to carry enough provision to insure against starvation in the Barren Grounds? Not at all. There was not room to carry more than tea, tobacco, our sleeping-furs, and moccasins and duffel socks. Moccasins and duffel and tobacco and tea are the highly essential articles in the Barren Ground outfit. The duffel is a light kind of blanket which is made into leggings and also into socks. You wear three pairs inside your moccasins, and at night, if you have been well advised, you put next to your feet a slipper moccasin of the unborn musk-ox, hair inside. It must be remembered that in the Barren Grounds you have no fire to thaw out or dry frozen and wet clothing. The tiny fire you do have is only enough to make tea. Therefore abundant duffel and moccasins are necessary, first, to have a dry, fresh change, and second, to replenish them as they wear out, as they do more than elsewhere, because of the rocky going. As for tea and tobacco, no human being could stand the cold and the hardship of a winter Barren Ground trip without putting something hot into his stomach every day, while the tobacco is at once a stimulant and a solace. The space left on the sledge after the tea and tobacco and moccasins and duffel have been stowed must be filled with the sticks that you cut into pieces (just the width of the sledge) at the last wood on the edge of the Barren Grounds proper. The sledge is a toboggan about nine feet in length and a foot and a half in width, made of two or three birch slats held together by crosspieces lashed on to them with caribou thongs, turned over and back at the front into a dasher, which is covered by a caribou apron (sometimes decorated in crude painting), and held in its curved position by strings of babiche,—as the thongs of caribou skin are called,—the same material which furnishes the snow-shoe lacing. On this sledge is fitted a caribou-skin body, about seven feet in length, the full width of the sledge, and a foot and a half deep. Into this is stowed the load. Then the top sides are drawn together, and the whole lashed firmly to the sledge by side lines. This must be done with the care and security bestowed upon the diamond hitch used on pack-animals; for the sledge in the course of a day’s travel is roughly knocked about.

It requires no further explanation, I fancy, to show why it is not possible to carry provisions.

One of my friends on my return from this trip suggested the possibility of shipping dogs into the country; of doing, in a word, somewhat as do the pole-hunting expeditions. That might be possible to a wealthy adventurer, but, even so, I should consider it an experiment of very doubtful results, simply because of the impossibility of feeding the dogs after they had arrived in the country, or of providing for them after you had started into the Barren Grounds. There is a period in the summer at Great Slave Lake when any number of dogs could be sufficiently fed on the quantities of fish that are then to be caught in the lake; and no doubt enough fish could be stored to feed them in the season when the lakes are frozen, if the dogs remained at the post. Even so, that would keep busy a number of especially engaged fishermen. But when you started for the Barren Grounds with all these dogs, your feeding problem would be an overwhelming one indeed, for only in the midsummer, when the caribou are to be found in large herds, would it be possible to kill meat for a great many dogs; and in midsummer you would not, could not, use dogs at all; at that season the Barren Grounds are invaded by means of the chain of lakes and short portages which begin at the northeastern end of the Great Slave Lake. Even travelling along the river the question of dog feed is a serious one, and you are obliged to carry the fish which have been caught the previous summer and stored at the posts in great frozen heaps. It is obvious, therefore, that there is no easy or comfortable way of getting into the Barren Grounds. It would be impracticable to do other than rely on the resources at hand and go into the silent land just as do the Indians. It is simply impracticable to do other than to depend on the caribou and the musk-oxen for food for both men and dogs.

III
Seasons and Equipment

Midsummer is the season when the hunter may visit the Barren Grounds with the least discomfort and least danger, for at this time you go by canoe. The caribou are plentiful and the thermometer rarely goes below freezing-point. But even then trials are many, and there is considerable danger of starvation. The mosquitoes are a pest almost beyond endurance, and the caribou, although abundant, are down toward the Arctic and of very uncertain movement. Their course of migration one year may be fifty to one hundred miles east or west of where it was the preceding year. In the 350,000 square miles of the Barren Grounds one may easily go days without finding caribou even at such a time of plenty; and not to find them might easily mean starvation.

OUTNUMBERED

The most extensive trips into the Barren Grounds for musk-oxen previous to my venture had been made by two Englishmen, Warburton Pike and Henry Toke Munn. Mr. Pike (a hunter of experience whose book, “Barren Ground of Northern Canada,” published in 1892, still stands as one of the most interesting and faithful contributions to the literature of sport and adventure) spent the better part of two years in this country, and made several summer and autumn trips into the Barren Grounds. He made one summer trip solely for the purpose of killing and cacheing caribou, which he might draw upon in the next autumn musk-ox hunt when the caribou were scarce. Yet, notwithstanding all this preparation, he had a very hard time of it in the autumn hunt and was unable to accomplish all that he set out to do. He did get, however, the musk-ox he went after. On Munn’s autumn trip, although there were yet to be had some fish in the lakes, he and his party and their dogs had a starving time of it indeed. I particularize these two trips to instance the difficulties of hunting in the Barren Grounds, even when the conditions are the most favorable that may be had.

The Indians time their hunting trips into the Barren Grounds by the movement of the caribou,—in the early summer, about May, when the caribou begin their migration from the woods down to the Arctic Ocean; and in the early autumn when the caribou are fairly well distributed and are working back toward the wood again. Caribou are absolutely essential to penetration of the Barren Grounds, because from the woods to where musk-oxen are found is a considerable distance, and no possible meat except that supplied by these members of the deer family. Nor is a trip into the Barren Grounds always rewarded with musk-oxen. Many Indian parties have gone in and failed to see even a track, and many others have skirmished along the edge, dreading to plunge into the interior, and hopeful perhaps of a stray ox. The Indians, who do not now hunt musk-oxen as much as formerly owing to the lessened demand for the pelt, usually go in parties of four to six; never less than four, because they would be unable to carry a wood supply adequate to getting far enough into the Barren Grounds for reasonable hope of securing the game; and rarely more than six, because when they have got as far into the country as six sledges of wood will permit, they have either got what they want, or they have had enough of freezing and starving to impel a start homeward. Only the hardiest make the trip; to be a musk-ox hunter and an enduring snow-shoe runner, is the dearest ambition of and the greatest height to which the Far Northland Indian can attain.

Before I started on my trip I heard much of pemmican, and fancied it procurable at almost any northern post, as well as supposing it a reliable source of provender. The truth is, however, that pemmican is a very rare article these days in that section of the country, and in fact is not to be found anywhere south of Great Slave Lake, and only there on occasion. This is largely because the caribou are not so numerous as formerly, and the Indians prefer to keep the grease for home consumption, when at ease in their autumn camps. Even among the Indians around Great Slave Lake pemmican is used but very little in the ordinary tripping (travelling). It has been substituted by pounded caribou meat, which is carried in little caribou-skin bags and eaten with grease. One can never get too much of grease in the Northland, where it is eaten as some consume sugar in the civilized world. And this is to be accounted for by the burning up of the tissues in cold dry climate and the absence of bread and vegetables; for meat and tea are the sole articles of food. Coffee, by the way, is a luxury to be found only occasionally on the table of a Hudson’s Bay Company post factor.

There is so much to be told, if one is to give an adequate idea of what hunting the musk-ox implies, that I find it somewhat difficult, without going to considerable length, to cover the entire field. I suppose it is because the musk-ox is the most inaccessible animal in the whole wide world, that there is so much curiosity concerning the conditions of hunting it, and so much interest in the recital of one’s experience. From time to time a great many letters come to me filled with questions, and I am and shall always be happy to add in personal letters any data I may have overlooked here. I am trying, however, to make this chapter thoroughly practical and intelligible to those with any thought of ever seeking the musk-ox in this region. The easiest way, as I have said, is to go by Hudson’s Bay Trading boat, which leaves Athabasca Landing as soon as the ice breaks, down to Resolution. If you have arranged beforehand by letter with the factor at Resolution, you will arrive there in time to make a summer hunt into the Barren Grounds, which is reached, as I have shown, by means of short portages and a chain of lakes, starting from the northeast corner of Great Slave Lake, and following Lockhart’s River. If you are not delayed and do not get too far into the Barren Grounds, you would stand a chance of getting out and back to Athabasca Landing on the water; but everything would have to go your way and the trip be most expeditious in order to do this. If you were not out in time to go by open water, it would necessitate a nine hundred mile snow-shoe trip, or laying over until the following spring when the ice broke up again.

The Canadian government has protected musk-oxen for several years, and in order to hunt, one must be provided with a special permit from that government. The protection of the musk-ox seems scarcely necessary, for although the polar expeditions have slaughtered a great many on Greenland and on the Arctic islands, the killing of them in the Barren Grounds proper never has been, and never will be, sufficiently large to give concern to the Canadian government. The musk-ox is of a genus that seems to be a declining type among the world’s animals, but if extinction comes to those in the Barren Grounds, it certainly will never be through their killing by white men or Indians. If any great value attached to the hide, it might be another story; but the truth is that the musk-ox robe is not a valuable fur, is sought after, indeed, but very little. It is too coarse to wear, and the only use to which it seems admirably adapted is as a sleigh-robe.

There is no difficulty in getting Indians for the summer hunt, for then the labor is slight as compared with snow-shoeing, and there need be no considerable worry about provisions. Nor would there be but very little trouble in securing Indians for the early autumn. The great difficulty I encountered in organizing my party was due solely to the time of year in which I made the venture. I was not particularly seeking hardship, but I had to go when I could get away from my professional duties, and that brought me to Great Slave Lake the first of March. February and March are the two severest months of the entire year in the Barren Grounds. It is the time when the storms are at their height and the thermometer at its lowest. No one had ever been into the Barren Grounds at that period, and the Indians, who are very loath to venture into an unknown country or at an unusual season, were disinclined to accompany me. Indeed it was only by diplomatic handling of the leader and through the extremely kind offices of the Hudson’s Bay Company post factor, Gaudet, that I ever succeeded in getting started.

Perhaps it will serve those contemplating such a trip one day, to record here my personal equipment.

One winter caribou-skin robe, lined with a pair of 4-point Hudson’s Bay Company blankets.

One winter caribou-skin capote (coat with hood).

One heavy sweater.

Two pairs of moose fur-lined mittens.

One pair moose-skin gloves. (Worn inside of mittens.)

One pair strouds (loose-fitting leggings).

Three silk handkerchiefs.

Eight pairs of moccasins.

Eight pairs of duffel socks.

One copper kettle (for boiling tea).

One cup.

45-90 Winchester half magazine rifle.

Hunting-knife. (See cut page 45.)

Compass.

Spirit thermometer.

10 pounds of tea.

12 pounds of tobacco.

Several boxes of matches.

Flint and steel and tinder.

Two bottles of mustang liniment (which promptly froze solid and remained so; it was fortunate I did not have occasion to use it).

In addition I carried, in case of emergency, such as amputation of frozen toes or other equally unpleasant incidents,—a surgeon’s knife, antiseptic lozenges, bandages, and iodoform. Of this outfit no two articles were more important perhaps than the moose-skin gloves and the strouds. The gloves are worn inside the mittens and worn always; one never goes barehanded in the Barren Grounds at any time, day or night, if one is wise. The strouds (reaching above the knee and held up by a thong and loop attached to waist belt) catch the flying and freezing snow dust from the snow-shoes, thus protecting the trousers. I forgot to add, by the way, that I wore Irish frieze trousers, cut small at the bottoms so as to be easily tied about the ankles. My underwear was of the heaviest, and I carried a pair of moccasin slippers made of the unborn musk-ox calf, fur inside. If you ever make a trip after musk-oxen, do not bring in anything from the outside, except your rifle, ammunition, and knife. Everything else you should secure at the outfitting post. There is nothing in this world that equals the caribou-skin capote for travel in the Northland; it is very light and practically impervious to the wind. You will also carry with you a tepee, made of caribou skin. This tepee, or lodge, is not carried for your comfort or protection against inclement weather, but entirely for the protection of your camp-fire; because the furious wind that sweeps the Barren Grounds in winter would not only blow out your flame but blow away your wood as well. The poles for your lodge you cut at the last wood and lash to the side of the sledge.

In summer time the question of transportation is much simpler; you go by canoe and you do not need strouds or the winter caribou-skin capote. There is a very great difference between the winter and the summer caribou pelts, and the latter is used for the summer trips. Nor do you need a tepee in summer.

IV
Method of Hunting

Among the Indians that live south and west of the Barren Grounds (no Indian lives in the Barren Grounds), the method of hunting the musk-ox is practically the same, and, as I have shown in the early part of this paper, it is because the Indians lack high hunting skill and because their dogs are neither trained nor courageous that bigger kills are not made. White hunters and trained dogs could practically wipe out every herd of musk-oxen they encountered; for while it is true that musk-oxen give you a long run once you have sighted them, yet when you get up to them, when the dogs have brought them to bay, it is almost like shooting cattle in a corral. There is always a long run. I think I never had less than three miles, and in the first hunt which I have described, I must have run nine or ten. But, as I say, when you get up to them it is easy, for they will stand to the dogs so long as the dogs bay them. And all this running would be unnecessary if the Indians exercised more hunting skill and judgment.

EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX CALF

Collected at Fort Conger by Commander R. E. Peary, U.S.N. (From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)

HEAD OF A TWO-YEAR-OLD MUSK-OX BULL

Killed and photographed in the Barren Grounds by the author. The horns are just beginning to show a downward tendency. Hair over forehead is gray, short, and somewhat curly. The background is the tepee referred to in the text.

Although the prairie form of the country is not altogether the best for stalking, yet one could stalk comparatively near a herd before turning the dogs loose. The Indians never do this, and, in addition, the dogs set up a yelping and a howling the moment they catch sight of the quarry. This, of course, starts off the musk-oxen, which invariably choose the roughest part of the country, no doubt feeling, and rightly, too, that their pursuers will have the more difficult time following. Indian dogs are not always to be relied upon, for they have a disposition to hunt in a group, and your entire bunch of dogs is apt to stop and hold only three or four stragglers of the herd while the remainder of the musk-oxen escape. Sometimes when they stop practically the entire herd, the dogs are very likely, before you come up to them, to shift, leaving their original position and gradually drawing together; perhaps, the whole pack of dogs finally holding only half a dozen, while the rest of the musk-oxen have run on. Musk-oxen, when stopped, invariably form a circle with their sterns in and their heads out; it matters not whether the herd is thirty or half a dozen, their action is the same. If there are only two, they stand stern to stern, facing out. I have seen a single musk-ox back up against a rock. Apparently they feel safe only when they get their sterns up against something.

Hunting musk-oxen on the Arctic Coast or the Arctic islands after the manner of the polar expeditions, is a much simpler proposition. There the hunters are always comparatively near their base of supplies, and, from all accounts, the musk-oxen are more numerous than they are in the interior. According to Frederick Schwatka, the Innuits hunt musk-oxen with great skill. They hitch their dogs to the sledge differently from the method of the Indians to the south. The southern Indians hitch their four dogs in tandem between two common traces, one on each side; while each Eskimo dog has his own single trace, which is hitched independently to the sledge. When the Innuits sight the musk-oxen, each hunter takes the dogs of his sledge, and holding their traces in his hand, starts after the game. The wisdom of this method is twofold: in the first place it immeasurably aids the running hunter, for the four or five straining dogs practically pull him along; indeed, Schwatka says that when these Innuits come to a hill they squat and slide down, throwing themselves at full length upon the snow of the ascending bank, up which the excited dogs drag them without any effort on the part of the hunter. I should like to add here that if such a plan were pursued in the Barren Grounds over the rocky ridges, the remains of the hunter would not be interested in musk-ox hunting by the time the top of a ridge was reached. Seriously, the chief value of hunting in this style is that the hunter controls his four to six dogs, the usual number of the Eskimo sledge. When they have caught up with the musk-ox herd, he then looses them and he is there to begin action. The Eskimo dogs are very superior in breed to those used by the Indians farther south, and are trained as well to run mute.

The chances of getting musk-oxen in the Barren Grounds are not so good in summer as in winter, because travelling by canoe you are, of course, bound to keep to the chain of lakes, and your course is therefore prescribed, it being impossible to travel over the land at will as it is in winter when all is frozen. One day’s hunting is about like another. There is nothing to kindle the eye of the nature lover. In winter it is like travelling over a great frozen sea; in summer it is a great desolate waste of moss and lichen, dotted with lakes and rock-topped ridges, which observe no one or special form of direction. There is a black moss that the Indians sometimes burn if they can find it dry enough, and a little shrub that furnishes a bitter tea if the tea of civilization has run out. Nearly all of the lakes have fish, and a hunter ought really, with experience and judgment, to go in and out in summer time without suffering any excessive starvation. Warburton Pike, who has studied the Barren Grounds in summer time more thoroughly than any other man living, reports spots covered with wild flowers that grow to no height but in comparative profusion and some beauty.

The distance you make in a summer day of Barren Grounds travel may depend entirely on your inclination, for with the fish and the moving caribou you are fairly well assured against hunger, and the weather is comparatively warm and permits of lingering along the route. It is quite another story in the winter, for then food is always a problem, and every day draws on your slender supply of wood. Of course the farther you penetrate, the nearer you get to the Arctic Coast, the more likely you are to see musk-oxen; and the faster you travel, of course, the farther you can penetrate. We averaged about twenty miles a day. That means that we kept busy every hour from the time we started until we camped. The hour of starting depended very largely upon whether or not there was a moon. If there was a moon, we would get started so as to be well under way by daylight, which when we first entered the Barren Grounds would be about nine o’clock. If there was no moon, we waited for daylight. There always was a moon unless it stormed; but it stormed most of the time. When there was a moon, however, it was always full. Travelling from Lac La Biche to Great Slave Lake on the frozen rivers, where it was a mere question of getting from one post to another, we used to start about two o’clock in the morning, the sun coming up about ten o’clock and setting at about three, and darkness falling almost immediately thereafter. In this river travelling I averaged a full thirty-five miles a day for the (about) nine hundred miles.

MUSK-OXEN ON CAPE MORRIS JESUP (88° 39´ North Lat.). BROUGHT TO BAY BY DOGS MAY 17th, 1900

The animals are within a quarter of a mile of the extreme northern limit of the most northerly land on the globe. Photograph by courtesy of Robert E. Peary, by whose expedition it was taken.

The Author’s Barren Ground Hunting Knife and Ax (14 inches long)

I think the most trying hour of the twenty-four in the Barren Grounds day was at the camping time in the afternoon. Beniah invariably chose the highest and most exposed position to be found, that our tepee might be the more visible to the scouts, kept out all day on either side looking for caribou, or musk-oxen; and there was always the delaying discussion of the Indians amongst themselves, while I, chilled to the bone by the inaction, stood around awaiting the close of the argument before it was possible to get to the business of camp-making. Because the snow was packed so hard as to be impossible to shovel away with the snow-shoe, a rocky site was always sought, where we fitted our bodies to the uneven ground as best we could. With the camp site definitely chosen, a circle was made of the sledges, touching head and tail; then three lodge poles, tied together at the top, were set up in the form of a triangle, with the ends stuck into the sledges to give them firm footing, and the four remaining poles placed so as to make a cone of the triangle. Over and around this was stretched the caribou-skin tepee, with the bottom edge drawn down and outside the sledges. Blocks of snow were then cut and banked up around the outside of the tepee and against the sledges; all this by way of firmly anchoring the tepee, which set so low that one’s head and shoulders would be in the open when standing upright in the centre; but that was of no consequence, the lodge being set up merely as a protection to the fire. A short pole, also carried along from the last wood, was lashed from side to side of the tepee, on to the lodge poles proper, and from this, attached by a piece of babiche and a forked stick, hung the kettle. Then, all being ready, four or five sticks were taken from the sledges equally, and split into kindling wood with the heavy knife one needs to carry in musk-ox hunting. Of course the fire furnished no warmth; it was not built for that purpose; it was simply to boil the tea, and perhaps I can best give an idea of its size in saying that by the time the snow in the kettle had been melted to water and the water begun to boil,—the fire was exhausted. While it blazed and the tea was making, always the close circle of seven hungry men, shoulder to shoulder, squatted around the light in the fancy that some heat must come from that little jumping flame. Outside that other circle of sledges, the dogs snuffed and sniffed and howled. Once I took off my gloves, with the thought of warming my fingers. I made no second experiment of the kind.

Having drunk the tea, we rolled up in our fur robes, lying side by side around the tepee, with feet toward the fire and head against the sledge, knees into the back of the man next you, and snow-shoes under your head, away from the dogs that would eat the lacing. This was only preparation for sleep; actual sleep, even to men as tired as we were, never came until the dogs had finished fighting over us; for so soon as we were rolled in our robes the dogs invariably poured into the tepee. As there were twenty-eight dogs, and the lodge about seven feet in diameter at its base, I need not further describe the situation. Truth is, that no hour in the day or night was more miserable than this, when these half-starved brutes fought over and on top of us before they finally settled down upon us. In extreme cold weather a dog curled up at your feet or at your back is not unpleasant; but to have one lying on your head, another on your shoulders or hips, or perhaps a third on your feet, and you lying on your side on rocky, uneven ground—take my word for it, the experience is not happy. Of course you are entirely wrapped up, head and arms as well, in your sleeping robe; if you rise up to knock the dogs off, you open your robe to the cold: and the dogs would be back on top of you again just as soon as you had lain down.

It is all in the Musk-ox game; and so you endure.

V
The Musk-ox

THE BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX—(Ovibos moschatus)

A full-grown bull. (From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)

Although there is nothing in the appearance or in the life of the musk-ox to suggest romance, yet the Indians and the Eskimo surround it with much mystery. They say it is not like other animals, that it is cunning and plays tricks on them, that it is not safe to approach, that it understands what is said. The Indians among whom I travelled have a tradition that long years ago a woman wandered into the Barren Grounds, was lost, and finally turned into a musk-ox by the “enemy.” Perhaps this accounts for the occasional habit these Indians have when pursuing musk-oxen of talking to them, instructing them as to the direction of their flight, etc. Several authors maintain that these Indians, when hunting, do not talk to other animals; but I have heard them jabbering while hunting caribou after the same manner they do when running after musk-oxen. Why the Indians should consider the musk-ox tricky or ferocious, appears to me to be the only mysterious element in the discussion; a less ferocious looking animal for its size would, it seems to me, be impossible to find. Several Arctic explorers who have written on the musk-ox also refer to it as “formidable” appearing and “ferocious,” but those are the last adjectives that I should apply to the creature. The Indians and some of the Arctic authors also say that it is dangerous to approach, especially when wounded. My experience does not indorse that statement. We encountered about one hundred and twenty-five musk-oxen, killing forty-seven, and I did not see one that even suggested the charging proclivities for which it is given credit. They stand with lowered heads, making a hook at the dogs that are nearest, and on occasion making a movement forward, practically a bluff at charging, but I never saw one really charge a dog, much less a man. I do not believe they can be induced to break the circle they invariably form, as they would, of course, do in charging. On one occasion I wounded a musk-ox badly enough to enable me to run him over and around a series of short ridges finally to a standstill. He was entirely alone, and I was without a dog, and when I had got to within seventy-five feet of him he suddenly stopped running and faced me, setting his stern against a rock—or, rather, over it, for it was quite a small rock. I walked up to within about thirty or forty feet of him, and took a head shot. I thought to see if I could reach his brain, but the boss of his great frontal horn protects it, except for the small opening of an inch where the horns are divided. Then with an idea of putting a ball back of his shoulder or back of his ear, I tried to get on his side, but as I moved, he moved, always keeping his head straight at me, and we made several complete circles; yet, in that time,—I suppose ten or fifteen minutes—he never offered to charge. If a straggling dog had not come my way and attracted the bull’s attention, I probably never would have got the chance of a shoulder shot. Mr. Pike, whom, of living men, I consider to have made the most extended study of the musk-ox, agrees entirely with my view of the animal so far as its charging is concerned. Perhaps the musk-ox might charge if you walked up and pulled his ear, but I doubt if he would under less provocation, and really, I do not feel so certain that he would even then. He seems a stupid, mild creature,—anything but “ferocious.” In one little band of eight which we had separated from the main herd and killed, a yearling calf ran against my legs, seemingly seeking protection from the dogs precisely as a young sheep would.

Forefoot of Barren Grounds Musk-ox. ½ actual size

The musk-ox appears, in fact, to be a veritable link between the ox and the sheep. It has the rudimentary tail, the molar teeth structure, the hairy muzzle, and the intestines of the sheep; while its short and wide canon-bones are like those of the ox, and differ widely from either sheep or goat. The hoofs are large, with curved toes and somewhat concave underneath, like the caribou hoof, which facilitates climbing rocky ridges and scraping away the snow from their only food, the lichen and the moss, for which purpose their horns are also admirably adapted. Mr. Rhodes has advanced the theory of the existence of a transition between the musk-ox and the bison, but the structure of the molar teeth and the rudimentary tail convince Professor R. Lydekker, perhaps the foremost scientific authority, of the impossibility of there being any manner of relationship between the two groups. Scientifically, the musk-ox is of the genus Ovibus, divided into O. moschatus, the Barren Grounds and Greenland type, the O. wardi (Lydekker), and O. bombifrons, otherwise known as the Harlan’s musk-ox, an extinct type that, in a word, differed from the present living type largely in shape of the horns, which did not have the downward curve of those in existence, nor did the curve of the horns come closely to the head as they do now.

FULL-GROWN EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX—(Ovibos Wardi)

Adult male. (From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)

Forefoot of East Greenland Musk-ox. ½ actual size

Until 1898 O. moschatus was the only existing type known to either hunters or scientists. In that year, however, Lieutenant Peary, the Arctic explorer, killed in Bache Peninsula, Greenland, a series of specimens which, on being sent to the Museum of Natural History of New York, were decided by Professor J. A. Allen as having sufficient distinction to warrant classification. Meantime Rowland Ward, the London taxidermist, had secured, by purchase, a couple of similar specimens from East Greenland which Professor Lydekker recognized as a new variety, and in honor of Mr. Ward named O. moschatus wardi. Mr. Ward’s specimens were secured from whalers who, in turn, got them from trading with natives in East Greenland. Lieutenant Peary’s specimens, however, were collected on the ground by himself, and he is certainly entitled to the honor of the new variety bearing his name. So Professor Allen rightly thinks, and though he has adopted Professor Lydekker’s name, he reserves O. pearyi (Allen) as a provisionary one which may be accepted for the Grinnell Land animal in case it should prove to be separable. This, however, does not appear likely. The most distinguishing difference between the O. wardi, as called, or O. pearyi, as it should be known, and the O. moschatus, is in the head. The entire front of the new variety head is more or less gray instead of wholly brown, as is the O. moschatus; while the horn base of the new variety is much narrower and slightly different in shape from those of the old variety. The skulls of the two varieties are practically alike; at least there is very slight difference. The general color of the fur of the new variety is a little lighter, and the animal itself is not so large or heavily built.

SKULL OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX—(Ovibos Wardi)

SKULL OF THE BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX—(Ovibos moschatus)

SIDE VIEW—(Ovibos Wardi)

SIDE VIEW—(Ovibos moschatus)

How either variety of musk-ox ever got to Greenland has been a subject of much discussion among scientists who seem now, however, to have finally decided that they reached the island from the west by crossing Smith Sound from Ellesmere Land, and by crossing Robeson’s Channel from Grinnell Land, thence along the low Greenland Coast to East Greenland. Outside of the Arctic islands and of Arctic America so far south as the 62d parallel, the musk-ox is unknown. There was a time, however, when its range included all that part of the northern hemisphere between, roughly speaking, the Arctic Circle and the North Pole. It seems even possible that in the dim ages, the musk-ox had a wider and much more southern distribution, for the skull from which the extinct type bombifrons was named, was found in Kentucky, another having been found also in Arkansas. Fossil remains of musk-oxen have been unearthed in Siberia, Alaska, Grinnell Land, and Northern Europe. There is no authentic data of their having been found in Alaska within the memory of present living man, and they do not range within two hundred miles of the Mackenzie River, which is laid down as their western limit. Much has been said of their being of recent existence in Alaska. I made careful search for authentic data concerning their western range, but secured no information at all trustworthy of even a tradition of them in Alaska; while nothing more certain than hearsay handed from father to son did I find as to their being seen near the Mackenzie River. From time to time statements find their way into print of a musk-ox found in Alaska. Such misleading information is based on the tales of traders who may perhaps have got a musk-ox skin at some Alaskan post. Mr. Andrew J. Stone, who has spent several years in the Far North collecting for the Museum of Natural History, and who knows Alaska and all that great stretch of country west of the Mackenzie River thoroughly, has covered this question in a statement published in an American Museum bulletin in 1901. It touches finally upon a question much agitated, and it seems to me sufficiently important to make permanent record here. Therefore I reproduce it.

MALE YEARLING OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX

(From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)

AS TO THE WESTERN RANGE OF MUSK-OXEN.

Febr’y 28, 1901.

My dear Dr. Allen:—

In response to your inquiry in reference to the existence of the musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus) west of the Mackenzie River, or in Alaska, I will state there are none of these animals in any part of Arctic America west of the Mackenzie. Previous to my departure for the North in the spring of 1897, I had for several years carefully searched for information upon this subject, and from what I had gathered I had a faint hope of finding some of these animals in the mountains west of the Mackenzie, just south of the Arctic Coast. These mountains are known, respectively, as the Richardson, Buckland, British, Romanzof, and Franklin Mountains, but in reality they are the western extension of the main Rocky Mountain range that bends west from the Mackenzie along the Arctic Coast. On reaching the neighborhood of these mountains, however, in the winter of 1898-99, all hope of finding living specimens of musk-ox in them was destroyed.

The Romanzof Mountains, from which specimens of musk-ox are reported to have recently been brought, by way of Camden Bay, are about one hundred and seventy-five miles west of Herschel Island. The Pacific Steam Whaling Company, with offices at No. 30 California Street, San Francisco, have maintained a whaling station at Herschel Island for a number of years; there has also been established there for a number of years a Church of England Mission, under the direction of the Rev. I. O. Stringer. I visited Herschel Island in November and December, 1898, for the purpose of collecting all possible information relative to the animal life of those regions. On my way to and from Herschel Island I sledded the very base of the Davis Gilbert, Richardson, and Buckland Mountains. I stopped over night on both journeys with a lot of Eskimo, at that time hunting the Davis Gilbert Mountains and living in what is known as Oakpik (willow camp), in the extreme western part of the Mackenzie delta, very near the foot of the mountains. Specimens of Ovis dalli (white sheep) and of caribou and fur-bearing animals were plentiful in their camp, but there was no sign of musk-ox.

At Shingle Point, on the Arctic Coast, near the Richardson Mountains, I spent several days with a man who was trading with the Eskimo who were hunting the Richardson Mountains. There were several Eskimo in his camp at the time, and he had in his possession skins of the white sheep, caribou, and a variety of fur-bearing animals, but there was no sign of musk-ox, and I learned on careful inquiry through my interpreter that the natives seemed to know nothing of them, with the exception of one young man who had been to the eastward on one of the whaling ships. The Tooyogmioots, a tribe of Eskimo who once lived along this coast and hunted these different mountains, are now almost extinct. I found between the mouth of the Mackenzie and Herschel Island a very few individuals living in snow houses, but I did not find in or around their places of residence any sign of musk-ox skins, bones, or heads.

I remained at Herschel Island from Nov. 24 to Dec. 14, visiting the Rev. I. O. Stringer and Capt. Haggerty of the steam-whaler, Mary Dehume. Both men were able to converse readily with the Eskimo in the Eskimo tongue, and they gave me every possible assistance in making my inquiries. This whole coast far to the westward of Herschel Island is now occupied by the Noonitagmiott tribe of Eskimo. There were a large number of these people at the island, and among them were parties who hunted all the mountains of the mainland mentioned, living in the mountains a great part of the time. Many skins of caribou, sheep, and fur-bearing animals were seen in the possession of these people, but none of them possessed any part of the musk-ox, and the only members of the tribe who knew anything of the musk-ox were those who had been carried to the east by whaling ships. The Rev. Mr. Stringer takes great interest in the natural resources of the country and travels extensively among these people, but he had no knowledge of the existence of any musk-oxen west of the Mackenzie. Capt. Haggerty had wintered along this coast for a number of years, trading extensively with the natives, but he had never secured or heard of a musk-ox skin west of the Mackenzie.

All the whaling ships, which have wintered here for years, sometimes as many as fifteen at the same time, keep Eskimo hunters in the field continually for the purpose of securing fresh meat for the crews, sending white sailors in charge of dog sleds to visit the Eskimo camps to bring in the meat. It is not uncommon for these sleds to go one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles for meat, and all the mountains to the north and west of Herschel Island have been visited many times by these hunters and sledding parties, without obtaining any trace of musk-ox. Collinson, who wintered near Camden Bay in 1853-54, does not mention the musk-ox. The U. S. Government Survey party, which wintered on the Porcupine several years ago and visited Rampart House, a Hudson Bay trading post at the Ramparts on the Porcupine River, and who went from there with Mr. John Firth, the Hudson Bay Company’s trader, north through these mountains to the Arctic Coast and returned, did not find musk-ox. Several white men have travelled back and forth through these mountains from Fort Yukon, on the Yukon River, to Herschel Island, for the purpose of securing sled dogs of the Eskimo on the Arctic Coast, to be used on the Yukon, without securing or learning anything of the musk-ox. Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Firth, both in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, have been stationed at Fort Yukon at the mouth of the Porcupine, at Rampart House on the Porcupine, and at Lapierres House on Bell River, a tributary of the Porcupine, during a period of over thirty years, trading with the Loucheaux Indians, several tribes of which hunt north of these places into the mountains mentioned, without ever obtaining any knowledge of the existence of musk-ox; and the Hudson Bay Company have never secured at any of these posts any skins of the musk-ox.

Previous to the advent of the whalers on this coast, the coast Eskimo also traded at these Hudson Bay posts. The country between the Porcupine River and the Arctic Coast, in which district the mountains above mentioned are situated, is entirely accessible from the north or south, and every part of it has been hunted for years by the Eskimo and Indians. Barter Island, near Camden Bay, has been the rendezvous of the north coast Eskimo for years, where they meet every summer to barter and trade with each other. At one of these midsummer festivals there may be seen spotted reindeer skins from Siberia, walrus ivory and walrus skins from Bering Sea, or the stone lamps from the land of the Cogmoliks (the far-away people) of the East, and it is not impossible, though hardly probable, that musk-ox skins might be found there.

I also travelled through the country of the Kookpugmioots and Abdugmioots of the Arctic Coast, east of the Mackenzie. The first people encountered along the coast east of the Mackenzie are the Kookpugmioots—they hunt the coast country as far east as Liverpool Bay, but many of their best hunters never saw a musk-ox. The Abdugmioots originally hunted the Anderson River country, but now live around Liverpool Bay, and most of them have hunted musk-ox. The Kogmoliks, who once lived around Liverpool and Franklin Bays, but who are now practically merged with the Kookpugmioots, along the shores of Allen Channel, have been musk-ox killers.

A good many of the Port Clarence natives, living near Bering Straits, have killed musk-oxen, but only around the head of Franklin Bay and on Parry Peninsula, they having been taken there by whalers. Nearly all the whaling ships pick up Port Clarence natives, on their way north and east to the whaling grounds, and keep them with them until their return, perhaps thirty months later. Some of these vessels have wintered at Cape Bathurst and in Langton Bay at the head of Franklin Bay. Four of these vessels wintered in Langton Bay in 1897-98, and during the winter their Eskimo and sailors killed about eighty head of musk-oxen, most of which were taken on the Parry Peninsula. When I was at Herschel Island, in the winter of 1898, I saw forty of these skins in one of the warehouses of the Pacific Steam Whaling Company. They were the property of Capt. H. H. Bodfish of the steam whaler Beluga.

The range of the musk-ox at the present time does not extend westward to within three hundred miles of the Mackenzie delta. Any information concerning the musk-ox gathered around Point Barrow and thence south to Bering Straits and Port Clarence, has been obtained from natives who have accompanied whaling ships to the East; and all the musk-ox skins that find a market in San Francisco have been purchased, directly or indirectly, from the whaling ships.

Very truly yours,

Andrew J. Stone.

Wherever explorers have gone into Eastern Arctic North America they have found the musk-ox. Lieutenant Peary, who has spent more time in the Arctic than any other living man, writes that he has killed musk-oxen at Cape Bryant on the Northwest Coast, and at the extreme northern end of Greenland Archipelago, north latitude 83° 39´, and it appears from lack of records to the contrary that they are found on all the Arctic islands except, curiously enough, the Islands of Spitzbergen and Franz Josef Land, where they are unknown. That the musk-ox does not seem to migrate on the ice from island to island as the reindeer do, is another curious fact.

Frederick Schwatka, who hunted along the Arctic Coast, and one or two of the scientists, place the southerly range of the musk-oxen at the 60th parallel, but this is fully two, if not four, degrees too far south to correctly represent their present range. Hearne saw tracks in latitude 59°, and musk-oxen in latitude 61°, in 1771, but I have never heard of musk-oxen being killed within recent years so far south as the 62d parallel. It is conceivable, however, that they might stray so far south, though in my opinion highly improbable. Pike records a musk-ox killed at Aylmer Lake, in the Barren Grounds. This is the most southerly killing that I have heard of, and the most southerly one of which Mr. Pike makes record. Aylmer Lake is just above the 64th parallel. I saw no musk-oxen below the 65th degree, and it was my experience, as well as Pike’s, that musk-oxen are not what you may, comparatively speaking, call plentiful until the 66th parallel.

ADULT FEMALE OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX

(From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)

Some writers persist in calling the musk-ox migratory, but there is no reason for doing so. When fully grown, it is about the size of the English black cattle, its height being 4 feet 2 to 4 inches at the shoulder, and its girth very large for its height. Indians estimate the flesh of a mature cow musk-ox equal to that of about three Barren Grounds caribou, which would be from three hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds; the bull may go as much as two hundred pounds heavier. They travel in herds varying from half a dozen to thirty or forty. Some authors have referred to “vast herds,” no doubt confusing musk-oxen with caribou. Fifty would be a large herd, and I suppose from ten to twenty would fairly represent the size of the average herd. As a rule, such a sized herd would have one or two bulls. I found herds that were all bulls, others that were all cows.

The robe is of a very dark brown, which seems black against the snow, and the hair all over the body is coarse and long, reaching down below the belly to the knees (especially long on the rump, where I measured some that was fifteen to twenty inches), and under the throat it hangs down as a thick mane. There appears to be a decided tendency to a hump, which is emphasized by the shorter stiffish hair that covers shoulders and the base of the neck. And there is a saddle mark of a dirty grayish white. Underneath this hair and over all the body grows a coat of mouse gray wool of fine texture, which protects the animal in winter and is shed in the summer. No wool grows on the legs, which are massive, and although short, appear to be shorter than they are because of the long hair that falls over them. In running, they have a rolling, choppy kind of a gait, and I noticed when they fell from a rifle wound they could not get on their feet again.

The growth of the horn is very interesting. It begins exactly as with domestic cattle by a straight shoot out from the head. For the first year, it is impossible to tell the difference between the sexes by the horns. In the second year, the bull horn is a little whiter than that of the cow; the forehead of a two-year musk-ox I killed showed a forehead covered with short, curlish hair. In this year the cow’s horn begins to show a downward turn, and is fully developed at its third year. The bull’s horns, on the contrary, are just beginning to spread at the base in the third year. They continue spreading toward the centre of the forehead until they meet in the bull’s fifth year, but in the sixth year they begin to separate, leaving a crevice in the centre which widens as the bull ages until it is from an inch to an inch and a half wide. In the cow these crevices also open by age to even a greater extent than in the bull. The horns of both bull and cow darken as they reach their full development, until they are quite dark from six to eight inches toward the base; and as the animal ages the extreme darkness of horn disappears, until finally in the old animal of either sex there remains only a black tip about a couple of inches on the very point of the horn. As the crevice between the horns in both sexes widens, the base of the boss on each side thickens to at least three inches in the bull and two or less in the cow. On the boss the horn is corrugated, but at the turn it becomes smooth, and is polished like an ox horn on the point.

The largest horns of which I believe there is record are owned by a taxidermist who purchased them; but the locality from which they came is unknown. Their breadth, measured up and down at the crevice of the boss, or, technically speaking, the breadth of palm, is 13¾ inches; the length of horns on outside curve, 30¼ inches. The next largest pair is in the British Museum and measures 13⅛ inches in breadth and 26¼ in length. The third is 12⅜ by 26¾, presented to the British Museum by J. Rae, an old time Hudson’s Bay Company factor, and got on the Barren Grounds. The next is 12½ by 27¼, the property of the Earl of Lonsdale, who picked up the head on his way down the Mackenzie River, several years ago. Warburton Pike holds the two next heads, one 11 by 26⅞, and the other 11 by 24¾. The largest head I killed is rather remarkable in respect to length of horn and thickness of the boss. Indian hunters who saw it, at all events, considered it most unusual. It measures 11½ by 27½; width of crevice, 1⅓ inch; thickness of boss at crevice, 3¾ inches.

The flesh of the musk-ox is exceedingly tough, and by no means pleasing to the taste, especially in the rutting season (August and September), when it is practically uneatable. There is a certain musky odor, but it is not so pronounced as generally said to be. In fact the only distinct musk-ox odor is got from breaking and crushing the dry dung. As indicative of this queer creature, I may add that musk-ox dung is but very little larger than and of very near the shape and color as that of the large hare. The flesh of the cow is by no means choice, but it is not bad; the flesh of the calf I found to be rather tasteless. The unborn calf is considered quite a delicacy, of which my Indians did not deny themselves merely because we had no cooking fire. They ate it raw, just as they took it from the mother’s stomach. Cows never give birth to more than one calf at a time, born in June.

MUSK-OX CALF

This specimen was captured March, 1901, east of Lady Franklin Bay, about 30 miles inland, by Indians sent out by Captain H. H. Bodfish of the whaler Beluga. After being exhibited in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, it was bought by Hon. William C. Whitney, who presented it forthwith to the New York Zoölogical Society. It died within a few months after. It was the first live member of the musk-ox family ever brought to the United States. (Photograph used by permission of the New York Zoölogical Society.)

On only two occasions have musk-oxen been brought alive into captivity in North America. One of these was an eighteen months’ old female caught east of Lady Franklin Bay, about thirty miles inland, by a party sent out by Captain H. H. Bodfish, of the whaler Beluga. This was exhibited at the Sportsmen’s Show in New York, where it was purchased by the Hon. William C. Whitney and presented to the Zoölogical Society of New York in March, 1902. The other was a younger specimen caught in Northeastern Greenland by Lieutenant Peary and brought out and presented to the Zoölogical Society by him in October of the same year. Both specimens, however, died within a few months. Up to now I believe something like a dozen live specimens have been taken out to the civilized world. All, however, at this writing, have died, except two or three. One is in a zoölogical garden at Copenhagen, another in a zoölogical garden at Berlin, and another is in England, owned by the Duke of Bedford, but exhibited, I am told, in London.

MUSK-OX

(Ovibos moschatus[5])

In spite of its name this Arctic ruminant has no near affinity with the members of the ox tribe, the cheek teeth being more like those of the sheep and goats, the muzzle, except for a small strip between the nostrils, hairy, and the tail reduced to a mere stump concealed among the long hair of the hind quarters. On the other hand, the resemblance to the sheep is not very close, the horns, which in old males nearly meet in the middle line of the forehead, being of a totally different form and structure, and the skull likewise very distinct. In the males the horns are much flattened and expanded at the bases, after which they are bent suddenly down behind the eyes, to curve upward at the tips. In the females they are much smaller, less expanded, and not approximated at their bases. In both sexes their texture is coarse and fibrous, and their color yellow. The long coat of dark brown hair, depending from the back and sides like a mantle, affords an adequate protection against the rigors of an Arctic winter; and the broad, spreading hoofs, with hair on their under surface, give a firm foothold on snow and ice. Two races are known—the typical Canadian and the Greenland (O. moschatus wardi). The latter is characterized by the presence of a certain amount of white on the forehead and the smaller expansion of the horns. Height at shoulder about 4 feet; weight of one weighed in parts, 579 pounds (D. T. Hanbury).

Distribution.—Arctic America, approximately north and east of a line drawn from the mouth of the Mackenzie River to Fort Churchill on Hudson Bay, Greenland, and Grinnell Land, in latitude 32° 27´; approximate southern limit, latitude 40° N.

Measurements of Horns

THE BISON

By George Bird Grinnell

THE LAST OF THE HERD

The buffalo was the largest and economically the most important of North American mammals. It was also one of the most numerous, and over a great area of the continent was practically the sole support of its aboriginal inhabitants. Within the memory of men who as yet are hardly middle-aged, it roamed the country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, in multitudes so vast that it was commonly stated that its numbers could not be materially reduced, that it would exist long after the speakers had died. Yet, within thirty years it has so absolutely disappeared that the number of living wild buffalo existing to-day is probably not greater than the herd of European bison—commonly, but erroneously, called aurochs—so carefully preserved in the forests of Lithuania by the Russian Czar.

The history of the buffalo’s extermination has been many times written, and the cause of its disappearance is not far to seek. It was killed in great numbers by the Indians, who used its flesh for food, its skin for clothing and for their shelters. Yet, under natural conditions, the destruction which they wrought was never very extensive, and was more than compensated for by the annual increase. Wolves, bears, and other wild animals which were found in great numbers throughout the buffalo’s range in old days, devoured many of them; but these were largely the aged, wounded, and crippled, or those which were drowned in the rivers, or mired in quicksands and mud-holes. All this destruction by natural enemies did little more than keep the race in good condition, by cutting off the sickly and the feeble.

When, however, the white man appeared on the scene, new conditions arose. The buffalo had a robe which was as useful to the white man as to the Indian. A trade speedily sprang up in these robes, which the Indians were glad to kill and tan for a cupful of sugar, or a few charges of powder and ball, or a drink or two of alcohol. Now, the Indians had a motive for killing which heretofore they had not had. They killed more buffalo and made more robes than before, but still they made no impression on the wandering millions which swayed to and fro under the influence of the seasons. Steamboats might pass down the Missouri River loaded to the guards with bales of robes, but the vast herds of buffalo showed no diminution. The early white explorers, or trappers, or traders, did not themselves take the trouble to collect buffalo hides; there were more valuable furs in the country, beaver and otter and bears, which brought better prices, and—more important than this—did not require to be tanned before they became marketable. For a buffalo skin untanned was never shipped; it was only after some Indian woman had expended on it days of patient labor, that it would bring at the trading post the pitiful reward which the white man gave.

At last, however,—and that was less than forty years ago,—a railroad began to push its way out on to the broad plains lying between the Missouri River and the Rockies, and to thrust itself into the very region where the buffalo fed. Over the shining rails of this railroad trains began to pass, carrying passengers; and among these were many white men eager for gain. These at once saw the possibilities of the buffalo. At first they killed them for meat, but soon the hides began to be shipped also. And other men, learning that the buffalo hides brought $2.00 each, and that buffalo were to be had for the trouble of shooting them, crowded into the range.

Then there began along the Platte Valley in Nebraska, a scene of slaughter which has seldom been equalled. The country was full of buffalo skinners. Each hunter had his teams, and his gangs of skinners which followed him about from place to place, and cared for the hides of the beasts which he killed. In some places the only water accessible was the Platte River, and here the buffalo came to drink. Here, too, the hunters, concealed in ravines or in rifle-pits that they had dug, shot down the beasts one by one, as they came to water, and, indeed, formed so complete a cordon along the river’s banks, that the buffalo could not get through and turned back into the hills. When at night the thirsty herds tried to approach the river under cover of darkness, they found that the hunters had built along the bottom great fires, which they kept up all night, and which the scared buffalo did not dare to pass.

It took but a little time to split the herd which for centuries had passed across the valley north and south with the seasons. It was about 1870 when this work began, and in 1874 the buffalo were last seen in the valley of the Platte. The herd had been split.

As other railroads to the southward pushed into the buffalo country, the same scenes were enacted. The buffalo country swarmed with hunters who came in constantly increasing numbers, so that none of them earned any money by their butcher’s work. The price of hides fell, but the buffalo continued to be slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands of hides went to market, but these were only a small proportion of the buffalo killed. Colonel Dodge has expressed the belief, that of the buffalo killed, only one-fourth or one-fifth reached a market. It is conceivable that the proportion was even less. A very large number of the hunters knew nothing about hunting, or shooting, or skinning a buffalo, or curing its hide. The number of maimed and crippled animals that went off to die was very large. The number of hides ruined in skinning was large, and the number improperly cured was still larger.

By the latter part of 1874, buffalo to the southward of the Platte River began to be very scarce, and in 1876 they were almost gone. After that none were found in the southern country except a few in the southern portion of the Indian Territory and in the waterless country of the pan-handle of Texas. There, protected by the drought, and so few in number as to present little attraction to the skin hunter, a few lingered for some years, until finally captured or destroyed by Buffalo Jones in his expeditions after calves for domestication.

In the northern country the buffalo lingered longer. The Northern Pacific Railroad, built as far west as Bismarck on the Missouri River in 1873, stopped there for six or seven years, and it was not until it had been continued well beyond the Missouri that it again entered the buffalo range and brought with it, as was inevitable, the buffalo skinner. When he came, he did the work he had done in the South, and did it as effectively. But as the number of buffalo left in the northern herd was small, it took only two or three years to destroy them.

After 1883, except for a band of about five thousand which had been overlooked on one of the Sioux reservations, there were no buffalo left in the northern country except a few scattering individuals, which, hidden in out-of-the-way places, had been overlooked by the hunters and Indians, and so for a year or two were preserved from slaughter. In the arid region about the heads of the Dry Fork and Porcupine Creek in Montana, one of these little groups was left, which yielded to expeditions sent out by the National Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, a series of specimens, probably the last of this species ever to be collected for science. They were brought together just in time, for since then there have been no buffalo.

A small herd of the so-called wood bison still inhabits the vast wilderness between Athabasca Lake and Lesser Slave Lake, but their numbers are few. In the year 1900 there were two little bunches of wild buffalo in the United States, perhaps neither of them numbering more than fifteen or twenty head. In the summer of 1901 one of these bunches, which had long ranged in Lost Park, Colorado, was wiped out by poachers, while for some years nothing has been heard of the other little band which ranged in Montana, and which, in 1895, numbered forty or fifty head, no less than thirty-two of which were killed a year or two later by Red River half-breeds who made a special trip to their range. At present the only important band of buffalo in the United States is that ranging within the confines of the National Park, and it is altogether probable that this does not number more than twenty-five or thirty.

No doubt the extraordinary abundance of the buffalo had something to do with the wastefulness of the slaughter which followed the railroad building into the buffalo range. Many people no doubt really believed that in their time the buffalo could not be exterminated. They seemed to reason that as there always had been “millions of buffalo” there always would be. Men killed buffalo for any foolish, childish reason that might come into their heads,—to try their guns, to see whether they could hit them, for fun!

How wantonly even some of the first traders destroyed them is often shown by the few writings that have come down to us from those early days. Henry, in his Journal of August, 1800, tells of the way in which he and some of his men passed the time while waiting for others of his people to come up. He says, “We amused ourselves by lying in wait, close under the bank, for the buffalo which came to drink. When the poor brutes came to within about ten yards of us, on a sudden we would fire a volley of twenty-five guns at them, killing and wounding many. We only took the tongues. The Indians suggested that we should all fire together at one lone bull which appeared, to have the satisfaction, as they said, of killing him stone dead. The beast advanced till he was within six or eight paces, when the yell was given, and all hands let fly; but instead of falling he galloped off, and it was only after several more discharges that he was brought to the ground. The Indians enjoyed this sport highly—it is true, the ammunition cost them nothing.”

There has been much misunderstanding as to the former distribution of the buffalo over the North American continent, and the extent of territory through which it was found. Many respected authorities have declared that it occurred in Eastern Canada, and generally along the Atlantic slope; in portions of New England, the Middle states, and south even into Florida. It was said in general terms that the buffalo occurred over the entire continent of North America, from Florida to the 50th degree of north latitude.

These loose statements were corrected by Dr. J. A. Allen, in his most important monograph on the American bisons, and it is now well understood that the range of the buffalo included only about one-third of the continent; that, while it was found on the Atlantic slope, this was only in the southeastern portion of its range; while in Canada, New England, and Florida, it was probably unknown.

The error into which early writers were led on this subject undoubtedly arose from the terms used by the earlier explorers, who spoke constantly of vaches, or vaches sauvages, and less frequently of buffu or buffle. But the term wild cows, used by the early French Jesuits and English explorers, referred to the elk (Cervus canadensis), while the words buffu or buffle were used to designate moose (Alces). In some of the narratives of the journeys of the Jesuit travellers, there appear on almost every page references to the herds of vaches sauvages, and many of these writers, at one time or another, describe these wild cows in such unmistakable language as to show beyond question that they were the elk or wapiti.

Dr. Allen assigns the Alleghany Mountains as the general eastern boundary of the range of the buffalo, although explaining that it frequently passed beyond that range, and showing conclusively that it occurred in the western portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Hornaday cites some evidence to show that it occurred in the District of Columbia, and quotes Francis Moore, in his “Voyage to Georgia,” to prove that there, at least, buffalo were found close to the salt water.

While Dr. Allen gives the Tennessee River as the southern boundary of the buffalo’s range, west of the Alleghanies and east of the Mississippi River, Mr. Hornaday quotes a number of references to show that it occurred in some numbers in what is now the state of Mississippi, and gives a tradition of the Choctaws, narrated by Clayborne, in regard to the disappearance of the species from that section. This tradition is to the effect that during the early part of the eighteenth century a great drought occurred there by which the whole country was dried up. For three years not a drop of rain fell. Large streams went dry, and the forest trees all died. Up to that time, it is said, elk and buffalo had been numerous there, but during this drought these animals crossed the Mississippi River and never returned.

In the eastern portion of its range, the Great Lakes formed a barrier on the north which the buffalo did not pass; but from western New York westward, it was found in numbers along the southern shores of these lakes, and in the territory now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Audubon tells us that in the first years of the nineteenth century there were buffalo in Kentucky, but declares that about 1810, or soon after, they all disappeared. This disappearance was due chiefly to their actual destruction by white men and by Indians, and not, as is commonly stated, to the retiring of the great herds before the advance of settlement and civilization. It seems that the last buffalo were killed east of the Mississippi River about the year 1820, although it may be that in Wisconsin and Minnesota they lasted somewhat longer.

West of the Great Lakes, and turning sharply northward so as to run nearly northwest, the eastern border of the buffalo’s range west of the Mississippi was a line running very near the western extremity of Lake Superior, up through the Lake of the Woods, west of Lake Winnipeg, and thence northward to and beyond the Great Slave Lake. There this border line turned to the west, and then sharply to the south, and meeting the Rocky Mountains not far from where Peace River leaves them, followed the range south, about to the 49th parallel; and then turning southwestwardly and including Idaho, a part of eastern Oregon, the northeast corner of Nevada, the greater portion of Utah, and most of New Mexico, the line passed down south well into Mexico, turning eastwardly just north of the 25th parallel of latitude, and running north to the coast, which it followed around again to the mouth of the Mississippi.

As it has been known in our day, the buffalo in the southern portion of its range was a trans-Missouri animal. North of the parallel of 45 degrees it was found in equal numbers on both sides of the Missouri River, and in its northern extension reached, and possibly even to-day reaches, north to Great Slave Lake; for, as already stated, the only considerable band of wild buffalo to-day is the wood bison of the north, estimated to number four hundred or five hundred.

Besides the boundaries thus set forth, it is probable that in early days there was a considerable extension of the buffalo’s range northward and westward, into portions of what is now Alaska. Certain it is that in that territory buffalo remains have been found in great numbers. Some of these skulls belong to species long extinct, and much larger than the American bison; but, on the other hand, there are many which are closely similar to that species.

The range of the buffalo to the west of the Rocky Mountains began to contract not very long after the narrowing of its range on the east. The earlier explorers in the West, from Pike downward, report buffalo in abundance. Yet, as already stated, the westernmost point at which their remains have been found is among the foot-hills of the eastern side of the Blue Mountains of Oregon. In 1836, it is reported, buffalo were abundant in Salt Lake Valley, but there nearly all were soon afterward destroyed by deep snows, which covered the ground for a long period of time. This corresponds well with statements made to me by John Robinson, better known in early days as Uncle Jack Robinson, one of the old-time trappers, who died between 1870 and 1880. In 1870 he told me that the buffalo on the tributaries of the Green River and on the Laramie Plains had all perished nearly forty years before, during a winter when very deep snows fell, followed by a thaw and subsequent cold, which crusted the snow so that the buffalo could not get through it, and starved to death. This statement was confirmed by the small number of remains, most of them extremely old and weathered, which we found in this region at that time. On the other hand, on upper tributaries of the Green River buffalo were found much later, and it is possible that these may have been animals which wintered in narrow valleys of the mountains, where, during this deep snow, food was accessible. Fremont states that in the spring of 1824 buffalo were abundant as far west as Fort Hall, while Bonneville reported them in extraordinary abundance in the Bear River Valley.

The mere fact that buffalo were not seen by an explorer who passed through any given territory does not necessarily show that they did not range in that country. I have travelled for months through a buffalo range without seeing buffalo or any evidence of their very recent presence, yet the signs found showed conclusively that a short time before they had been there in vast numbers. It would have been perfectly possible for two honest reports, made a few months or years apart by explorers who were not prairie men, absolutely to contradict each other.

Although the buffalo disappeared from the country west of the Green River, and even from the Laramie Plains, a long time ago, it lingered much later on tributaries of the Platte River further to the northward. There were buffalo on the Sweetwater and its tributaries between 1870 and 1880, and on certain other tributaries of the North Platte River between 1880 and 1890. About this same time there was a small band ranging in what is called the Red Desert Country, south of what is now the National Park. But the last of these disappeared about 1890.

The color of the buffalo is well understood to be a dark liver brown over most of the body, changing to black on the long hair of the fore legs, muzzle, and beard. The long hair on the hump is yellowish, faded from sunburn, and often much the color of the hair of a “tow-headed child.” The mountain bison, which lives largely in the timber, and is scarcely or not at all exposed to the sun, is much darker, sometimes almost black, throughout.

Very rarely buffalo of unusual color were seen. These were sometimes roan, sometimes gray or spotted with white, or even pure white throughout. A hide taken on the upper Missouri about 1879 was white on the head, legs, and belly, and elsewhere of normal color; the result was that when the animal was skinned and the hide tanned there was a fine robe of the ordinary color bordered with a wide band of white. If I recollect aright, this particular hide was sold on the river to an Englishman for $500.

Buffalo of unusual color, being so seldom seen, were regarded by the Indians with great reverence. Among the plains tribes, the buffalo, on which they depended for food, shelter, and clothing, was sacred. Its skull was usually placed on the ground near the sweat lodge, prayers were made, and the pipe was offered to it, in a petition to the buffalo to remain with them, to be abundant, and even to run over smooth ground, so that their horses should not fall during the chase. If buffalo in general were sacred, how much more should the white one receive reverence. The Pawnees cherished their skins as sacred objects, and kept them in their medicine bundles, or used them to wrap about these bundles. The Blackfeet regarded white buffalo as especially dedicated to the Sun, and hung up the white robe as a votive offering to that deity. In the same way, the Cheyennes, in old times, sacrificed the hide of a white buffalo to the Sun, although later, after their habits had been measurably changed by contact with the whites, they sometimes sold such robes.

My friend George Bent—son of Col. William Bent, one of the historic characters of the early West—tells me that during a long course of trading among the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, he has seen but five robes that could fairly be called white. One of these was silver-gray, another, white, a third, cream color, the fourth, dapple gray, and the fifth, yellowish fawn color. He tells me that in ancient times the white buffalo was regarded by the Cheyennes as sacred, and that, if one of them killed a white buffalo, he left it where it fell, taking nothing from it, and not even putting a knife into it. The Cheyennes believe that any white buffalo belongs far to the north, and comes from that region where, according to their tradition, the buffalo originally came out of the ground.

A great many years ago a war party of Cheyennes went up north against the Crows. One day they came to a hill, and when they looked over it they saw before them great herds of buffalo lying down, and among them a cow, perfectly white. When the buffalo stood up to go to water, the white cow also stood up, and went with them, and it was observed that none of the other buffalo went very close to her. They did not appear to fear her, but they did not crowd close about her; they gave her plenty of room, as if they respected her. This led the Cheyennes to think that the white buffalo was a chief among other buffalo.

The women of the Cheyennes did not dress a white buffalo’s hide. When occasion arose for such work, it was commonly done by some captive woman; for example, a Kiowa, or a Pawnee,—some one who was not bound by Cheyenne customs and Cheyenne fears. Rarely, a Cheyenne woman went through a certain ceremony, being prayed over by a medicine-man, and painted in a peculiar fashion; this ceremony removed the tabu, and she might then dress the white robe.

The habits of the buffalo were in most respects those of domestic cattle. They fed in loose herds as cattle do, the members of a family—that is to say, the old cow and her progeny, sometimes up to three or four years old—keeping together; the old bulls, lazier, heavier, and less active than the cows and the younger stock, were usually on the outskirts of the herd, and if it was slowly moving in any direction, were likely to be behind. Much has been written concerning the intelligence of the buffalo, and the manner in which the bulls stood sentry over the herd, constantly on the watch for danger. There is not and never was any foundation for these stories, which were mere creations of the writer’s imagination. As a matter of fact, the cows were much more alert and watchful than the bulls, were always the first to detect danger and to move away from it, while the bulls were dull and slow, and often did not start to run until the herd at large was in full flight. Moreover, the cows and younger animals of the herd were much swifter than the bulls, and so pressed constantly to the front, while the bulls brought up the rear. The disposition of the males had nothing to do with any desire to protect the herd, but resulted from the fact that they were slower than the others. The earlier writers on the habits of these and other animals, credited them with human motives and aspirations, which of course they do not possess. A somewhat similar fashion of writing about animals is current at the present day, but is false and unnatural, and will pass.

The hides of the buffalo are in their best condition in the early part of the winter, and it was the practice of the Indians to collect their robes at that time of the year,—namely, between November and January. Soon after January, however, the hair begins to grow loose, and it is shed during the spring and early summer, though often great patches cling to the body until late summer or early fall. I have seen buffalo in the month of July still clad in what looked like a loose robe, the old hair hanging together in an almost complete mat, covering the body. Usually, however, by rubbing against trees, rocks, and banks of dirt, and by rolling on the prairie, the loose hair is got rid of by early summer. In very old animals the moult takes place later and less easily than in those in good condition, and sometimes old and lean buffalo do not seem to shed their coats completely.

The rutting season begins in July and lasts about two months. During this time frequent battles take place among the bulls, apparently fierce on account of the size and activity of the combatants, but usually without important results. These fights are much like similar contests between domestic bulls; they paw up the ground, kneel down and thrust their horns into the earth, mutter and bellow and grunt; but although they charge on each other with fury, and come together with a tremendous shock, the contest usually ends in nothing more important than the driving off, for a time, of the weaker bull. From their great activity at this season, the bulls rapidly lose flesh; but after the rut is over, they regain it, so that by the beginning of the cold weather they, like the cows, are fat and in good order.

The buffalo cow produces, usually, a single calf, which may be born during the months of March, April, May, or June. The usual time for the calves to be born is in April and May. Shortly before that time the mother separates herself from the herd, which, however, she rejoins not long after the birth of the calf. Like many other ruminants, the mother hides her calf when it is small and weak, but does not wander far from it. After it has gained some strength it joins other calves, and these usually keep together a little apart from the main herd, their mothers coming to them from time to time in order that they may nurse.

When first born, the calves are reddish yellow in color, do not possess any noticeable hump, and look very much like ordinary domestic calves, except that possibly the tail is slightly shorter. Before very long, however, they commence to grow darker in color, and I have seen calves in August that at a little distance seemed almost as dark as the adult buffalo.

The cow is devoted to her calf, and is ready to fight for it against any enemy except man. Usually, in the buffalo chase, the cow, thoroughly frightened, paid no attention to the calf. But, on the other hand, cases have occurred, where men have been capturing calves to rear in captivity, in which the cow refused to desert her offspring, but turned upon the captor of the calf and charged him with the utmost boldness.

Colonel Dodge instances a case where a number of bulls devoted themselves to protecting a calf against wolves. He says, “I have seen evidence of this many times, but the most remarkable instance I 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 actions 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 downward, while in a concentric circle, at some twelve or fifteen paces distant, sat, licking their chops in impatient expectancy, at least a dozen large gray wolves—except man, the most dangerous enemy of the buffalo. The doctor determined to watch the performance. After a few moments the knot broke up, still keeping in a compact mass, and started on a trot for the main herd some half mile off. 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 fifty or one hundred yards, the calf lay down; the bulls disposed themselves in a circle as before, and the wolves, who had trotted along on each flank of their retreating supper, sat down and licked their chops again. This was repeated again and again, and although 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.”

We may imagine that this was an unusual occurrence; at the same time, it is true that a group of buffalo, if one of their number is attacked or threatened by wolves while they are close together, will all rally to the general defence, and will stand by each other. But that the bulls make it their business to defend calves, or systematically preserve anything except their own skins, I do not believe.

Few people who have seen the buffalo only in captivity, few even of those who have hunted them on the level plains, have any idea of the agility of this clumsy, heavy creature, or of the disposition that it shows to reach elevated points, so difficult of access that a horse might find it a hard matter to climb them. In old times, one might see buffalo ascending steeps that were nearly vertical; or, on the other hand, throwing themselves down the sides of mountains so sharply sloping and rough that a horseman would not dare follow them. Like many other animals, wild and tame, they often liked to seek elevated points from which a wide view might be had, and I have found their tracks and other signs on points high up in the mountains, where only sheep or goats would be looked for. The mountain bison, so-called—and by many hunters regarded as a species quite distinct from the buffalo of the plains—was especially given to frequenting the peaks in summer; no doubt in part to avoid the attacks of flies, but also in part—as I believe—from sheer love of climbing.

Like most other herbivorous animals, the buffalo was subject to panics, and was easily stampeded, and when thoroughly frightened, a herd ran for a long way before stopping. When alarmed, they huddled together as closely as possible, running in a dense mass. The result of this was that only the animals on the outskirts of the herd could see where they were going; those in the centre blindly followed their leaders and depended on them. This very fact was a source of danger, for the leaders, crowded upon by those that followed, even if they saw peril in front of them, could not stop, and often could not even turn aside, but were constantly forced on to a danger that they would gladly have avoided. This is the entirely simple explanation of a characteristic often wondered at by writers about this species; that is, their habit of running headlong into danger,—plunging over cut banks into the pens prepared for them by the Indians, or rushing into quicksands or places where they mired down, or into deep water, which might have well been avoided, or even up against such obstacles as a train of cars or a steamboat in the river. The simple fact is that the animals which saw the danger were unable to avoid it on account of the pressure from behind, and those that were pressing the leaders on were ignorant of the danger toward which they were rushing.

I have already adverted to the popular but erroneous belief that the buffalo performed extensive migrations in spring and fall. This is not true. There were, unquestionably, certain seasonal movements east and west, and north and south, yet these movements were never very extended, and constituted nothing more than the very general shiftings which are made by many ruminants between a summer and a winter range. Throughout the country lying between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri River, the buffalo, in summer, moved up close to the mountains and even into the foot-hills; and at the coming of winter, with its snows and its bitter winds, they moved to the eastward again, seeking the lower ground and such shelter as the ravines and buttes and timbered river valleys of the prairie might afford.

On the other hand, buffalo, in their journeys to water, usually travelled to the nearest streams, and as on the plains the streams usually run from west to east, and the buffalo travelled in single file, their trails ran at right angles to the course of the rivers, or north and south. It is quite possible that the directions of these trails, deeply worn, and showing the passage of great numbers of animals, may have given rise to the popular belief in this north and south migration.

At the same time, it is true that the buffalo herds were more or less constantly in motion. As they were very numerous, it was obviously essential that they should move constantly, to reach fresh grazing grounds. Often, too, they were disturbed by hunters, red or white, who stampeded the herds, which then rushed off in a close mass, perhaps not to stop for ten or a dozen miles. Besides that, frequently, the prairie was burned, so that they were deprived of food, and long journeys must be made to reach fresh grazing grounds.

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Not very much is known, and very much less has been written concerning the tendency in animals, wild and domestic, to confine themselves to particular localities; yet all people who live much out of doors understand, even though they may not reason much about it, how very local in habit many birds and animals are. The ranchman, of course, knows that the horses and cattle which feed on his range divide themselves up into little bunches, each of which selects some special area where they spend all their time, rarely moving far from it, except to make journeys to water; or, at some change of the seasons, to migrate from summer to winter range or back again. In domestic stock this attachment to locality is strongly marked, and it is a common thing for animals that have been driven to a range hundreds of miles distant from that on which they have been accustomed to feed, to travel back toward their old haunts as soon as they are turned loose. I have known cases where one-third of a large bunch of horses, driven to a new range four or five hundred miles away, were a year later gathered again on their old home range. It is a matter of common experience for horses that escape from owners, travelling at a distance from the home range, to take the back trail and return to it.

Among our larger game animals a similar condition of things prevails. White-tail deer are greatly attached to particular localities, and when undisturbed, confine their wanderings within very narrow limits. Even if thoroughly frightened, and driven to a considerable distance, they soon return. If an old white-tail buck is run with dogs, he may make a long chase, and cover a wide stretch of country, but to-morrow he will probably be found in his old home. In the same way, mule deer, mountain sheep, white goats, and antelope show their attachment for localities, and unless persistently disturbed, wander but little.

The same thing is true with regard to non-migratory birds. Ruffed grouse attach themselves to certain pieces of woodland, or to particular swamps, and the birds may be found there all through the season. In like manner, quail establish themselves on certain small pieces of ground, and after their haunts have been learned, may be started there with unfailing regularity.

During many years’ experience with big game, I have often had these facts thrust on my attention, and have seen much to warrant the belief that, like other wild animals, the buffalo feels attachment for a particular range of country, which it does not desert except for good reason, or when the change from summer to winter, or back again, leads to a migration that may fairly be called seasonal. The buffalo’s attachment to locality, and its natural inertia, is well exemplified by an experience of Major G. W. H. Stouch, U.S.A., retired, a veteran soldier of more than thirty-five years’ experience on the plains, of which he told me many years ago. I give it as nearly as possible in his own words:—

“In the fall of 1866 I was directed to proceed with Company C, Third Infantry, to reëstablish old Fort Fletcher on the north fork of Big Creek, sixteen miles below the present Fort Hays, Kansas. When on October 16th we marched down to the site chosen, and went into camp, I noticed half a mile above us on the creek bottom a considerable herd of buffalo feeding; there were perhaps eight or nine hundred of them. As soon as I saw them, it occurred to me that I would leave them undisturbed, and that so long as they remained there they might furnish us a supply of beef at very little cost of time or trouble. I therefore ordered the men not to hunt up the creek, or disturb these buffalo in any way, instructing them to do all their hunting down the stream.

“In order to put my idea in practice at once, I detailed one of the soldiers as hunter and butcher of the company, and told him to go up the creek and kill a buffalo, but not to show himself either before or after firing the shot—merely to kill a fat cow and then to remain under cover until I joined him with a wagon. He did so. At the report of the rifle the buffalo fired at ran a few steps, and then lay down, while those nearest to it made a few jumps, looked around, saw no one, and then went on feeding. From the camp we were watching the result of the shot, and as soon as fired, I went with a wagon to bring in the meat. As the wagon approached the carcass, the nearest buffalo moved out of the way, without showing any special fear, and the wagon returned to camp with its load. This was repeated daily, the buffalo never being frightened either by the shot or the wagon, and seeming to become more tame as time went on, often approaching within a few hundred yards of where we were at work erecting the buildings.

“About November 1st, Troop E, Seventh Cavalry (under Lieutenant Wheelan) arrived to reinforce the post; and about November 19th Company B, Thirty-seventh Infantry (under Lieutenant Phelps) also arrived. I explained my plan of operation to these officers, and requested them to detail hunters from their companies, and to order their men to hunt down the creek, and not to disturb what I had come to regard as the post beef herd. They did so, and the herd still remained with us.

“One morning in February, ’67, a sergeant, whom I had sent the day before with a small detail to make a scout, rapped at my door, and reported his return. Among other things, he said: ‘Lieutenant, I met our buffalo herd travelling up the creek, about fifteen miles from here. They were moving slowly; just feeding along.’

“I determined to see if they could not be brought back, and taking twenty-five men (accompanied by Lieutenant Cooke, Third Infantry, Adjutant, Assistant-Surgeon Fisk, and Mr. Hale, the post trader) rode up the creek, and entered the valley above the herd. Then, forming a skirmish line across the bottom, we very slowly advanced toward the buffalo. When they first noticed us, the leaders seemed uncertain what to do; but as they had been accustomed to seeing large parties of us, instead of running, as I feared they might, they at length turned about and began slowly to work backward in the direction from which they had come. By nightfall the herd was on its old feeding ground, and there we left it, and there it remained until spring, and would, no doubt, have remained longer, but, unluckily, the Seventh Cavalry, under General Custer, rode in upon it, as they came down the creek to the post for supplies, after their unsuccessful chase after the Cheyennes, who had run away from General Hancock. General Custer detailed two troops with orders to secure meat for the command. After chasing it, and killing forty-four head, the herd was scattered, and never returned. The herd supplied the post (consisting of about three hundred officers and men) with fresh beef from October 16, 1866, until about April 20, 1867.”

The buffalo calf, when captured very young, was easily tamed. Indeed, nothing more was needed at times than to permit the calf to suck the fingers for a moment or two, when it would follow the rider into camp, and seemed to be wholly without fear of man. As already stated, when very young it is hidden by its mother, and, like the young of deer, elk, antelope, and other ruminants, it can then be captured, and makes no effort to escape. This, by many writers, has been denounced as stupidity and dulness. As a matter of fact, it is merely following out the protective instinct which is common to the young of many large mammals, at a time when they are without weapons for self-protection, and without strength or speed to save themselves by flight.

At various times during the last two hundred years, attempts have been made to domesticate the buffalo, and with entire success. But these attempts have never been continued long enough to be productive of any economic results. Nevertheless, buffalo were kept in captivity from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and toward the end of that century were actually domesticated, bred, and crossed with domestic cattle in Virginia, and somewhat later in Kentucky. The very full account given to Mr. Audubon by Mr. Robert Wycliff, of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1843, has often been quoted, and all the experiments since made have confirmed the conclusions then stated. It was proved, and is now well known, that the buffalo, in domestication, are easily handled, respect fences, and are but little more difficult to control than domestic cattle; that the male buffalo crosses readily with the domestic cow; that the progeny of the two species are fertile with either species and among themselves. It has also been demonstrated that the cross-bred animal is larger than either parent, and so makes a better beef animal. Besides, its hide yields a robe which, if not equal to that of the buffalo, is, at least, vastly superior to the hide of the ordinary beef. More important than either the beef or the robe, is the very greatly increased hardiness of the cross-bred animal, which enables it to endure extremes of cold and snow, which would destroy the ordinary domestic cattle.

From the days of Robert Wycliff, almost to the time when Mr. C. J. Jones, of Kansas, began experiments in breeding buffalo, little or nothing had been done in this direction. A few years earlier Mr. S. L. Bedson, of Stony Mountain, Manitoba, set to work at the same problem, and both men met with abundant measure of success. Both bred pure buffalo in considerable numbers, and both succeeded in breeding the buffalo with the domestic cow, and securing a progeny which was remarkable for size and for the robes produced. Indeed, Mr. Hornaday quotes Mr. Bedson as saying that the three-quarter bred animal produces “an extra good robe which will readily bring forty to fifty dollars in any market where there is a demand for robes.”

It is altogether possible that the time for establishing a race of buffalo cattle has past. The buffalo are extinct, and the number of animals in captivity to be drawn on, very small. Nevertheless, the great preponderance of bulls among these domesticated buffalo, makes it possible that something in this direction might be done, though the chances now are much against it.

The buffalo has often been broken to the yoke. Robert Wycliff says of this animal, “He walks more actively, and I think has more strength than an ox of the same weight. I have broken them to the yoke and found them capable of making excellent oxen; and for drawing wagons, carts, or other heavily laden vehicles on long journeys, they would, I think, be greatly preferable to the common ox.” Under the yoke, however, they are said to be somewhat difficult to control, and cases are cited where broken buffalo have, for various causes, run away, to the great detriment of the load they were hauling. In the year 1874 a settler on Trail Creek, in Montana, told me that he had a pair of bulls broken to the yoke, and declared that they would haul more than “any two yoke of cattle on the place.”

There is another reason besides the lack of buffalo for thinking that no systematic attempt to cross these animals with domestic cattle will ever be attempted. The days of free ranging, where the cattle are turned out on the prairie to look after themselves, winter and summer, are almost over, and year by year the area of the free range is becoming more and more contracted. The advantages of great size and a valuable robe would still be an attraction to the farmer; but the hardiness which enables the half-breed animal to endure almost any winter weather will soon cease to be required, because the cattle of almost all the western country will be kept under fence, and fed on hay during the winter.

From time immemorial the buffalo furnished food to the Indians, and with the coming into the land of the white man it supported him also. What the primitive method was by which the Indians hunted buffalo we do not know, but at the time the redmen became known to the whites, when they were footmen, the only method of securing this animal was by the surround, or by driving it into pens from which the buffalo could not escape, and where they were easily destroyed. Such pens were built at the foot of cut bluffs or low cliffs, over which the buffalo were driven; or, in the more open and flat country, where ravines with steep sides were not found, a long fenced causeway was often built, on which the buffalo were driven, and when reaching its end, the leaders, by reason of the pressure of those behind, were forced to jump into the pen, and the others followed, until all were captured. Often, if the drive was made over a high bluff, the fall killed many of the beasts, and even when this did not take place, many of the younger and weaker animals were destroyed by their fellows in the tremendous crush which took place within the pen.

No sooner did the buffalo find themselves confined, than they began to race about the enclosure, and the men standing on the logs which formed its sides, shot them with their stone-headed arrows as they ran by, until at length all had fallen.

The principle of the foot surround was not different from this. When a herd of buffalo was found, the Indians waited for a day when the wind did not blow, and then, creeping toward the buffalo, they surrounded them on all sides. When the line was fairly complete, one man would show himself, and perhaps frighten the buffalo by waving his robe at them. They would start to run, when the men stationed at the point of the circle toward which they were directing their course would show themselves, toss their robes in the air, and turn them in another direction. Thus, whichever way they ran, they found people standing before them, and soon they began to run around in a circle within the ring of men, and continued to do this until they became exhausted. Little by little the men drew closer together, making the circle smaller, and soon the buffalo were running near enough to them for them to be shot by their arrows.

It did not always happen that the hunt was successful. Sometimes in the pen a strong bull might find a place where no one was standing, and might leap over the barrier, or at least leap on it, throwing his whole weight against it. Very likely he would be followed by others, and perhaps a number would succeed in surmounting the wall; or they might even break it down, and then the whole herd would stream out of the pen and be lost. Sometimes, too, in the surround, especially if the herd of buffalo was large, it was found impossible to turn them, and they would break their way through the ring of men. In like manner, when, as sometimes happened, the Indians set up their lodges all about the herd, the buffalo might yet find a way to break through and escape.

If, however, all went well, and a good part of the herd was killed, there was great rejoicing all through the camp. Everybody was happy, since now, for some days, food would be abundant, and every one would have enough to eat; and there is nothing that the Indian dreads so much as hunger.

Later, after the Indians obtained horses and iron-pointed arrows, and, later still, repeating rifles, these old methods were all given up. It was easier to chase the buffalo on horseback, and their pack-horses gave them a ready means for bringing the spoils of the chase back to the camp. Now, too, they used the lance in hunting, driving the horse close up on the buffalo’s right side, holding the lance across the body, and, with a mighty two-handed thrust, sending the keen steel deep into the animal’s vitals.

Perhaps no more exciting scene could be witnessed than one of the old-time buffalo chases by the Indians. Naked themselves, they rode their naked horses, carrying their quivers of arrows on their backs or by their sides, and their bows in their hands. The good buffalo horses were swift of foot to catch the cow, admirably trained for running over the rough prairie, often dangerous from badger holes or burrows of the prairie dog, and knowing how to approach the buffalo, and also how to avoid its charge—trained, in fact, just as well as the cow-pony is trained, which knows exactly what is expected of him when he is cutting cattle out of a bunch. The chase was conducted in silence, and the only sound heard was the rumble of a thousand hoofs—dull where the ground was soft, and sharp if it hardened. If the herd was large, the scene was one of great confusion. Buffalo and horses with their riders were dimly seen amid the cloud of dust thrown up by the fleeing herd. Horses were constantly overtaking the buffalo, riders were bending down, horses were sheering off, buffalo were falling. The old bulls, passed by the swift riders, were turning off and fleeing, singly or in little groups, to right and to left, while the swifter cows, with heads down and tails in air, were pressing forward in flight to escape the Indians, who were riding with their rearmost ranks.

Not greatly differing from this, save that guns were used and there was much yelling and noise, were the hunts of the wild Red River half-breeds. These were pursued on horseback, and the men were armed with the old Hudson Bay smoothbore flint-lock guns. Powder was carried in a horn and balls in the mouth. When he had discharged his gun, the hunter poured the powder from the horn directly into the barrel, guessing at the quantity, slipped a ball from the mouth into the barrel, the gun was given a jar on the saddle to settle the load, a little priming was poured into the pan, and he was ready for another shot.

On such hunts the Red River half-breeds transported their families and their property almost entirely in the well-known Red River carts, each drawn by a single horse, and containing, besides a load of baggage, a woman and perhaps two or three children.

Besides these wholesale methods of taking buffalo, of course they were killed singly by men who crept close enough to them to drive even a stone-headed arrow deep enough into the sides to reach the life. Often, when the buffalo were in situations where it was impossible to approach them, men disguised as wolves crept in among the herd, and killed buffalo with their arrows. Catlin and others have described and figured this method of approach, which at the present day is traditional only among the Indians; yet an old friend, who died a few years ago, almost a hundred years old, has told me that he had many times killed buffalo in this way, either alone or in company with some Indian friend.

Indians and half-breeds alike preserved the flesh of the buffalo by drying it. The strips or wide flakes of meat were cut about one-quarter of an inch thick and hung on scaffolds exposed to sun and air. In a day or two the meat was thoroughly dried, when it was bent into proper lengths, and either tied in bundles or done up in parfleches. It was from this dried meat that the well-known pemmican was made. The dried meat was roasted over a fire of coals, and then broken up by pounding with sticks on a hide, or by pounding between two stones. This pulverized flesh was mixed with the melted fat of the buffalo, and after the whole mass had been thoroughly stirred, was packed in sacks made of buffalo skin, which were then sewed up with sinew, and as the mass gradually cooled the sack became hard, and would keep for a very long time.

The killing of buffalo, as described, was in no sense sport; instead, it was work of the hardest kind. The swift ride over the dry plains through the clouds of dust, the killing of the buffalo, and finally the cutting up of the animals was physical labor far harder than most of that performed by civilized man. Usually, the buffalo were killed far from water, and the severe work that the man had been doing and the summer heat made him very thirsty. It is not strange, then, that he slaked his thirst by devouring the liver, sprinkled with gall, or by eating raw the gelatinous nose of the buffalo.

The description of a butchering, given by Audubon in his “Missouri River Journal,” is very graphic, and is worth quoting here:—

“The moment that the buffalo is dead, three or four hunters, their faces and hands often covered with gunpowder, and with pipes lighted, place the animal on its belly, and, by drawing out each fore and hind leg, fix the body so that it cannot fall again; an incision is made near the root of the tail, immediately above the root in fact, and the skin cut to the neck, and taken off in the roughest manner imaginable, downward and on both sides at the same time. The knives are going in all directions, and many wounds occur in the hands and fingers, but are rarely attended to at this time. The pipe of one man has perhaps given out, and with his bloody hands he takes the one of his nearest companion, who has his own hands equally bloody. Now one breaks in the skull of the bull, and with bloody fingers draws out the hot brains and swallows them with peculiar zest; another has now reached the liver, and is gobbling down enormous pieces of it; while perhaps a third, who has come to the paunch, is feeding luxuriously on some—to me—disgusting-looking offal. But the main business proceeds. The flesh is taken off from the sides of the boss, or hump bones, from where these bones begin to the very neck, and the hump itself is thus destroyed. The hunters gave the name of ‘hump’ to the mere bones when slightly covered by flesh; and it is cooked, and is very good when fat, young, and well broiled. The pieces of flesh taken from the sides of these bones are called filets, and are the best portion of the animal when properly cooked. The forequarters, or shoulders, are taken off, as well as the hind ones, and the sides, covered by a thin portion of flesh, called the dépouillé, are taken out. Then the ribs are broken off at the vertebræ, as well as the boss bones. The marrow-bones, which are those of the fore and hind legs only, are cut out last. The feet usually remain attached to these; the paunch is stripped of its covering of layers of fat, the head and backbone are left to the wolves. The pipes are all emptied, the hands, faces, and clothes all bloody, and now a glass of grog is often enjoyed, as the stripping off the skin and flesh of three or four animals is truly very hard work.… When the wind is high, and the buffaloes run toward it, the hunters’ guns often snap, and it is during their exertions to replenish their pans that the powder flies and sticks to the moisture every moment accumulating on their faces; but nothing stops these daring and usually powerful men, who, the moment the chase is ended, leap from their horses, let them graze, and begin their butcher-like work.”

The Indian and the half-breed killed the buffalo for their support,—for food, clothing, shelter, and many of their implements. The civilized buffalo skinner exterminated it for its hides. There was another class which did something toward wiping out the buffalo, yet the numbers killed by them were inconsiderable in comparison with those killed for commercial purposes. This class comprised those who ran buffalo for sport. Buffalo-running was not a difficult art, nor especially exciting, except so far as it is exciting to chase and overtake some creature that is trying to escape. Provided a man had a good horse and was fairly accustomed to riding, there was little difficulty and little danger in the buffalo chase. At the same time, the combination of the swift ride, the rough country, the dust and dirt thrown up by the flying herd, and the close proximity of the great beasts have reduced many a buffalo runner on his first chase to a pitch of nervousness which made him do precisely the wrong thing. There have been cases, not a few, where riders, trying to kill buffalo with a pistol, have shot their own horses instead of the buffalo; and at least one case came to my knowledge where the excited hunter, riding up on the right instead of the left side of the bull, and shooting across his own body, managed to shoot himself in the left arm.

There was something rather exhilarating in the headlong ride after buffalo, a game not unlike “follow my leader,” which boys play, where the leader chooses the roughest and most difficult ground over which he can pass, and the follower is obliged to take the same route. But buffalo-hunting is now a sport of the distant past, and it is needless to speak of it at any length.

In the days of its abundance the buffalo was a most impressive species, and their enormous numbers have been a theme on which many writers have delighted to linger. Adjectives have failed them to describe the multitudes of buffalo seen, and it was not unusual for men to travel long distances among great herds, which made slow way for them as they passed along. Many calculations have been made of the numbers of buffalo seen at one time; but, after all, these can be little more than guesswork. Terms like thousands and millions, so commonly used, have little or no meaning, for we have no standard of comparison by which to measure them. All the earlier writers, however graphic their descriptions of their numbers, fail to impress the reader, because no one could comprehend such numbers except by seeing them. Dr. Allen, Mr. Hornaday, Colonel Dodge, and many of the old explorers, give much matter bearing on this subject. A few lines from the Journal of Alexander Henry give some idea of their numbers on the Red River. He says, under date of September 18, 1800: “I took my usual morning view from the top of my oak, and saw more buffalo than ever. They formed one body, commencing about half a mile from camp, whence the plain was covered on the west side of the river as far as the eye could reach. They were moving slowly southward, and the meadow seemed as if in motion. This afternoon I rode a few miles up Park River. The few spots of wood along it have been ravaged by buffalo; none but the large trees are standing, the barks of which are rubbed perfectly smooth, and heaps of wool and hair lie at the foot of the trees. The small wood and brush are entirely destroyed, and even the grass is not permitted to grow in the points of the wood. The bare ground is more trampled by these cattle than the gate of the farm yard.”

Even in recent times one might journey for days at a time through herds, which to the eye seemed absolutely to cover a blackened prairie, and I myself have travelled for weeks through the Northwest without, at any time during the day, being out of sight of buffalo. How many millions there were in the great herds through which we used to pass, it is useless now to compute. They have all gone. But over a vast extent of the western country they have left memorials still visible and long to endure in the deep trails which furrow the prairie in all directions.

Other mementos still to be seen, and stirring the heart of the old-timer, though to the man of to-day they are without a meaning, are the huge erratic boulders which lie here and there over the prairie where they were dropped by the great ice mass in its passage down from the highland. Against such boulders the buffalo used to rub their bodies, and such masses of granite or of flinty quartzite, polished and with their sharp angles worn away by the rubbing against them of the tough hides, may often be seen. About such a rock, deep worn in the ground, is the trench, where the bulls and the cows and the younger animals once marched as they pushed their sides against the hard rock, their hoofs cutting the soil into fine dust to be blown away by the wind. The angles of these old rubbing-stones are still discolored by the grease left on them from the buffalo’s skins, and looking at them, one might fancy that they had been used only yesterday.

Here, then, are monuments of imperishable granite, fashioned by a race of dumb creatures, and telling to him who can read their sculpturing a long story of life and power and multitude forever gone. From earliest time man has set up all over the earth his enduring memorials to hold the wonder of later ages; but of the races of the beasts, which one has done this, save only the bison?