160 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
to a horse or mule, are cut by innumerable hoofs into a series of narrow ter- 
races, each a buffalo trail. 
“Tn the whole region just north of the Milk River, absolutely treeless ex- 
cepting along a part of the stream, and on the Sweet Grass Hills, buffalo 
chips are everywhere at hand for fuel. 
“In descending the Missouri River from Fort Benton, buffalo were seen 
almost daily during that part of the voyage which embraced the rapid por- 
tion of the river flowing between the bluffs of the Bad Lands. Small droves 
were seen.surmounting peaks which, it would seem, only a mountain sheep 
could scale; and in one instance, indeed, the attempt was'a failure, and the 
animal rolled down hill in a cloud of dust. No more were seen below the 
mouth of the Musselshell, where the Missouri widens and enters a flatter 
country. The limit on the Missouri corresponds in longitude, in a general 
way, with that above noted on the parallel of 49°.” 
Tt thus appears that twenty years ago buffaloes were accustomed to fre- 
quent the whole region between the Missouri River and the 49th parallel, 
from the western boundary of Dakota, or the 104th meridian, westward to 
the Rocky Mountains, occurring even throughout the foot-hills of the latter 
as well as over the head-waters of the Bitter Root, or St. Mary’s River, one 
of the sources of Clarke’s Fork of the Columbia, but that they are now re- 
stricted to the region between Frenchman’s Creek, near the 107th meridian, 
and the Rocky Mountains, over much of which area their occurrence is 
merely irregular and more or less fortuitous, their main range being between 
the 110th and the 112th meridians. 
Region between the Upper Missowit and Platte Rivers. —t is so well known 
that the buffalo formerly ranged throughout this region that there is little 
need of presenting further evidence of the fact than will be given incident- 
ally in tracing the boundaries of their present range, and in sketching the 
history of their extirpation over the greater part of this extensive territory. 
Beginning at the eastward, we find that Bradbury in 1810, in crossing from 
the Platte River northward to the Mandan Villages, met with a few buffaloes 
in what is now Eastern Nebraska, on the Elk Horn River, and that they 
were then plentiful on the Canon Ball and Heart Rivers, in what is now 
Southwestern Dakota.* They lingered in Southwestern Dakota till within 
a very short time. The last buffalo killed near Fort Rice was taken in 1869, 
* Bradbury (John), Travels in the Interior of North America in the years 1809, 1810, and 1811, pp. 53, 
34, 
