Buffalo 303 



trail steadily throughout its course, and when it came to a more 

 difficult point than usual, the railway was compelled to tunnel 

 at the strategic point of least elevation, and in two instances 

 the trail runs exactly over the tunnel! This same thing occurs 

 now in the building of a new railway." 



But the white-man was not the first to follow the Buffalo's 

 paths. Professor Mooney has proved to us that the Sioux 

 Indians were a race of the Atlantic coast; that they migrated 

 through the Alleghanies to the Mississippi Valley, and on— 

 and yet farther on— they went. Doing what ? We know to-day 

 from their traditions, from their life, and from their route, they 

 were following the Buffalo. They followed them over the 

 mountains, by the paths the Buffalos themselves had made. 

 They have followed them long and far. Will they still keep on, 

 and— as many of their bravest wished to do— seek the herds 

 no more on the vast Missourian Plains, but over the borderland, 

 in those perfect hunting-grounds where the mosquito, the small- 

 pox, and the white man are unknown; and where alone the 

 Buffalo bands will ever again be seen darkening the offing and 

 ** making the earth one robe .?" 



Fig. loy — A story of the plains. 



