THE AMERICAN BISONS. 165 
storm. Contrary to all precedent, there was no wind, and the snow covered 
the surface evenly to the depth of nearly four feet. Immediately after the 
storm a bright sun softened the surface, which at night froze into a crust so 
firm that it was weeks before any heavy animal could make any headway over 
it. The Laramie Plains, being entirely surrounded by mountains, had always 
been a favorite wintering-place for the buffaloes. Thousands were caught in 
this storm, and perished miserably by starvation. Since that time not a 
single buffalo has ever visited the Laramie Plains. When I first crossed 
these plains, in 1868, the whole country was dotted with skulls of buffaloes, 
all in the last stages of decomposition and all apparently of the same age [or 
period of exposure], giving some foundation for the tradition. Indeed, it 
was in answer to my request for an explanation of the numbers, appearance, 
and identity of age [condition] of these skulls, that the tradition was related 
to me by an old hunter, who, however, could not himself vouch for the 
ducts, * 
That this may have been the case seems very probable from the fact 
that I found, in returning over these plains in December, 1871, the snow so 
deep and so heavily encrusted that the herds of domestic stock were dying 
from starvation whenever it happened that their owners had not provided 
for such an emergency by laying in a good supply of hay. Many animals 
perished from lack of food and shelter, the occurrence of such conditions as a 
deep snow heavily encrusted being wholly unlooked for; and had buffaloes 
been then living on these plains they could hardly have survived the long 
period during which the ground was inaccessible to grazing animals. 
The buffalo has also become exterminated over a large portion of the 
country to the northward of the Sweet Water along the eastern base of the 
Rocky Mountains, extending northward, in fact, over the head-waters of the 
Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. Dr. Hayden informs me that but few 
were found in 1871 and 1872 on the Upper Yellowstone, and that they are 
now rarely seen above Shields River, although they occurred in the Wind 
River Valley in 1860. He says, moreover, that very few are found on the 
Three Forks of the Missouri, where they have been nearly all destroyed or 
driven out by the miners. Those that remain are chiefly old bulls, the scat- 
* Chicago Inter-Ocean, August 5, 1875. This and the previous extracts from the Inter-Ocean news- 
paper were sent to this paper by a reporter accompanying the Black Hills Expedition of 1875, of which 
Colonel Dodge was in command, as a portion of an “advance chapter” from a forthcoming book on 
the West by Colonel Dodge. This book, “ based on personal experience,’ has been announced as about 
to appear, with maps and illustrations, under the title of “The Black Hills.” 
