268 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



since the death of the animal. Reasoning that, if they had 

 been killed by hunters, I should find broken limbs, skulls with 

 bullet-holes in them, and marks of rifle-balls on the bones, I 

 searched often and diligently for these signs, but I found none. 

 True, a stray shoulder-blade, older in appearance than the 

 rest, had a spear-head sticking through it, as evidence that an 

 Indian had killed this animal many years before; but, on the 

 newer-looking and complete skeletons, no mark of violence 

 was to be observed. Evidently, they had not been killed by 

 hunters. They lay stretched out on the prairie, large animals 

 and small, on upland and lowland, usually singly, though one 

 day I found fifty in a bunch, lying in a ravine. These seemed 

 mainly small or young animals. I observed that just to the 

 north was one of the highest hills in the locality, the situation 

 being such that, within an hour after a big blizzard had gotten 

 up full steam, this ravine would probably be ten feet deep with 

 snow. 



"I pondered much upon this subject, for there were at 

 least 200 of these skeletons on my own half-section. By the 

 time the next season opened, however, I had ceased to wonder 

 how they died, for the cause became evident. 



"The winter of 1 880-1 is still known to the early settlers of 

 Dakota as the 'blizzard winter,' and the storm of October 15, 

 1880, as the 'October blizzard.' The morning of that day, 

 following a rainy night, opened with a fast-falling snow-storm 

 and a gale from the north. You could not see a house twenty 

 feet away. To venture from shelter during the next two days 

 was to endanger your life. Although early in the season and 

 the temperature not very low, the soft wet snow would weigh 

 down your clothing in a few moments, so you could scarcely 

 bear the burden. When it cleared, on the morning of the 17th, 

 the entire aspect of the landscape seemed changed. The 

 prairie at this point is quite rolling, and cut by many drywater- 

 courses, although there is not a living stream in the country, 

 and not a tree in sight. On that morning the whole country 

 had been brought to practically a dead level. The quantity 

 of snow was almost beyond belief. Everywhere it entirely hid 



