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He held up a second to descend the
narrow trail, and when he had got about halfway down I let him
have it; I was only a few steps from him and over he
tumbled. I don't know why I killed him; out of pure
wantonness, I expect, or perhaps I thought it would frighten
the others back. Not so, however; they only quickened
their pace, and came dashing down in great numbers. Dozens of them stumbled and fell over the dead bull; others
fell over them. The top of the bank was fairly swarming
with them; they leaped, pitched, and rolled down. I
crouched as close to the bank as possible, but many of them
just grazed my head, knocking the sand and gravel in great
streams down my neck; indeed I was half buried before the herd
had passed over. That old bull was the last buffalo
I ever shot wantonly, excepting once, from an ambulance while
riding on the Old Trail, to please a distinguished Englishman,
who had never seen one shot; then I did it only after his most
earnest persuasion.
One day a stage-driver named Frank
Harris and myself started out after buffalo;
they were scarce, for a wonder, and we were very hungry for
fresh meat. The day was fine and we rode a long way,
expecting sooner or later a bunch would jump up, but in the
afternoon, having seen none, we gave it up and started for the
ranch. Of course, we didn't care to save our ammunition,
so shot it away at everything in sight, skunks, rattlesnakes,
prairie-dogs, and gophers, until we had only a few loads
left. Suddenly an old bull jumped up that had been lying
down in one of those sugar-loaf-shaped sand hills, whose tops
are hollowed out by the action of the wind. Harris
emptied his revolver into him, and so did I; but the old fellow
sullenly stood still there on top of the sand hill, bleeding
profusely at the nose, and yet absolutely refusing to die,
although he would repeatedly stagger and nearly tumble
over.
It was getting late and we couldn't
wait on him, so Harris said: "I will dismount, creep up behind
him, and cut his hamstrings with my butcher-knife." The
bull having now lain down, Harris commenced operations, but his
movement seemed to infuse new life into the old fellow; he
jumped to his feet, his head lowered in the attitude of fight,
and away he went around the outside of the top of the sand
hill! It was a perfect circus with one ring; Harris, who
was a tall, lanky fellow, took hold of the enraged animal's
tail as he rose to his feet, and in a moment his legs were
flying higher than his head, but he did not dare let go of his
hold on the bull's tail, and around and around they went; it
was his only show for life. I could not assist him a
particle, but had to sit and hold his horse, and be judge of
the fight. I really thought that old bull would never
weaken.
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Finally, however, the "ring" performance began to show
symptoms of fatigue; slower and slower the actions of the bull grew,
and at last Harris succeeded in cutting his hamstrings and the poor
beast went down. Harris said afterward, when the danger was all over,
that the only thing he feared was that perhaps the bull's tail would
pull out, and if it did, he was well aware that he was a goner. We brought his tongue, hump, and a hindquarter to the ranch with us,
and had a glorious feast and a big laugh that night with the boys
over the ridiculous adventure.
General Richard Irving Dodge, United States
army, in his work on the big game of America, says:
It is almost impossible for a civilized being
to realize the value to the plains Indian
of the buffalo. It furnished him with home, food, clothing, bedding, horse
equipment--almost everything.
From 1869 to 1873 I was stationed at various
posts along the Arkansas
River. Early in spring, as soon as the dry and apparently
desert prairie had begun to change its coat of dingy brown to one of
palest green, the horizon would begin to be dotted with buffalo,
single or in groups of two
or three, forerunners of the coming herd. Thick and thicker, and in large groups they come, until by the time
the grass is well up, the whole vast landscape appears a mass of buffalo,
some individuals feeding, others lying down, but the herd slowly
moving to the northward; of their number, it was impossible to form a
conjecture.
Determined as they are to pursue their journey
northward, yet they are exceedingly cautious and timid about it, and
on any alarm rush to the southward with all speed, until that alarm
is dissipated. Especially is this the case when any unusual
object appears in their rear, and so utterly regardless of
consequences are they, that an old plainsman will not risk a
wagon-train in such a herd,
where rising ground will permit those in front
to get a good view of their rear.
In May, 1871, I drove in a buggy from old Fort
Zarah to Fort Larned, on the Arkansas
River. The distance is thirty-four miles. At least
twenty-five miles of that distance was through an immense herd. The whole country was one mass of buffalo,
apparently, and it was only when actually among them, that the
seemingly solid body was seen to be an agglomeration of countless
herds of from fifty to two hundred animals, separated from the
surrounding herds by a greater or less space, but still
separated.
The road ran along the broad valley of the Arkansas.
Some miles from Zarah a low line of hills rises from the plain on the
right, gradually increasing in height and approaching road and river,
until they culminate in Pawnee Rock.
So long as I was in the broad, level valley,
the herds sullenly got out of my way, and, turning, stared stupidly
at me, some within thirty or forty yards. When, however, I had
reached a point where the hills were no more than a mile from the
road, the buffalo
on the crests, seeing an unusual object in their rear, turned, stared
an instant, then started at full speed toward me, stampeding and
bringing with them the numberless herds through which they passed,
and pouring down on me, no longer separated but compacted into one
immense mass of plunging animals, mad with fright, irresistible as an
avalanche.
The situation was by no means pleasant. There was but one hope of escape. My horse was, fortunately, a
quiet old beast, that had rushed with me into many a herd, and been
in at the death of many a buffalo. Reining him up, I waited until the front of the mass was within fifty
yards, then, with a few well-directed shots, dropped some of the
leaders, split the herd and sent it off in two streams to my right
and left. When all had passed me, they stopped, apparently
satisfied, though thousands were yet within reach of my rifle. After my servant had cut out the tongues of the fallen, I proceeded
on my journey, only to have a similar experience within a mile or
two, and this
occurred so often that I reached Fort Larned
with twenty-six tongues, representing the greatest number of buffalo
that I can blame myself with having murdered in one day.
Some years, as in 1871, the buffalo
appeared to move northward in one immense column, oftentimes from
twenty to fifty miles in width, and of unknown depth from front to
rear. Other years the northward journey was made in several
parallel columns moving at the same rate and
with their numerous flankers covering a width
of a hundred or more miles.
When the food in one locality fails, they go to
another, and toward fall, when the grass of the high prairies becomes
parched by the heat and drought, they gradually work their way back
to the south, concentrating on the rich pastures of Texas and the Indian
Indian Territory ,
whence,
the same instinct acting on all, they are ready
to start together again on their northward march as soon as spring
starts the grass.
 Old plainsmen and the Indians
aver that the buffalo
never return south; that each year's herd was composed of animals
which had never made the journey before, and would never make it
again. All admit the northern migration, that being too
pronounced for any one to dispute, but refuse to admit the southern
migration. Thousands of young calves were caught and killed
every spring that were produced during this migration, and
accompanied the herd northward; but because the buffalo
did not return south in one vast body as they went north, it was
stoutly maintained that they did not go south at all. The
plainsman could give no reasonable hypothesis of his "No-return
theory" on which to base the origin of the vast herds which yearly
made their march northward. The Indian
was, however, equal to the occasion. Every plains Indian
firmly believed that the buffalo
were produced in countless numbers in a country under ground; that
every spring the surplus swarmed, like bees from a hive, out of the
immense cave-like opening in the region of the great Llano Estacado,
or Staked Plain of Texas
. In 1879 Stone Calf, a celebrated
chief, assured me that he knew exactly where the caves were, though
he had never seen them; that the good God had provided this means for
the constant supply of food for the Indian,
and however recklessly the white men might slaughter, they could
never exterminate them. When last I saw him, the old man was
beginning to waver in this belief, and feared that the "Bad God" had
shut the entrances, and that his tribe must starve.
The old trappers and plainsmen themselves, even
as early as the beginning of the Santa Fe
trade, noticed the gradual disappearance of the buffalo,
while they still existed in countless numbers. One veteran French
Canadian, an employee of the American Fur Company, way back in the
early '30's, used to mourn thus: "Mais, sacre! les Amarican, dey go
to de Missouri
frontier, de buffalo
he ron to
de montaigne; de trappaire wid his fusil, he
follow to de Bayou Salade, he ron again. Dans les Montaignes
Espagnol, bang! bang! toute la journee, toute la journee, go de sacre
voleurs. De bison he
leave, parceque les fusils scare im vara moche,
ici là de sem-sacré!"
Added May, 2005
~~~~~~~~~
By 1900 there were only three hundred buffalo
left in the United States. This condition drastically altered the
life of the Plains Indians.
In 1902, a herd of 41 captive and wild bison was placed under
government protection in Yellowstone Park; these animals formed the
nucleus of the herd that survives today.
Now, the trend has been reversed and the buffaloes
live in the wilderness on reservations with the hope that their
numbers will increase. They will never reach their former status when
they roamed freely over the majestic, windswept plains. But hopefully
man will be wise enough to protect them from extinction.
~~~~~~~~~
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