TENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 199 



CARETAKERS. 



It is quite essential that there should be one man living on the 

 range besides the Forester, if for no other reason than the moral 

 effect it will have on the community. The caretakers would also 

 be required to watch for and fight prairie fires, keep up the fence, 

 cut hay for winter use, cut water-holes through the ice in winter, 

 keep the drinking troughs clean, dig out springs, and, in fact, do 

 the hundred and one little things that are constantly arising when 

 least expected. 



It is not absolutely necessary that the men in charge of the 

 range should be experienced in raising buffalo. After the buffalo 

 have been put on the range and are permanently settled the less 

 they are herded and driven about the better it will be for the 

 breeding cows. Outside of salting them occasionally and feed- 

 ing with hay in severe winters they will need no more care than 

 their ancestors, who would now be roaming the plains in thou- 

 sands had they simply been left alone. 



If the Texas-fever difficulty can be overcome and no unforeseen 

 calamity appears, judging from the breeding experiences of buf- 

 falo raisers both east and west, there is reason to believe that the 

 buffaloes placed on the proposed buffalo range in Oklahoma will 

 in a reasonable time become one of the largest herds in existence. 



PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 



Every one that I talked with, both white men and Indians, took 

 great interest in the prospect of a portion of the Wichita Forest 

 Reserve becoming a buffalo range. Several old Indians could 

 not suppress their delight at the thought of again seeing buffalo 

 roaming over the plains of Oklahoma. 



Ouannah Parker, Chief of the Comanches, has a fine ranch just 

 off the Reserve. When I questioned him regarding the buft'aloes 

 in the early days, and told him that President Roosevelt was deeply 

 interested in buffalo preservation, he replied : " Tell the President 

 that the buffalo is my old friend, and it would make my heart 

 glad to see a herd once more roaming about Mount Scott." 



With an eye to business another old Indian, " Sankadody," 

 followed me out of the agency where, through an interpreter, I 

 had been carrying on a conversation with him, and said confi- 

 dentially, in broken English, " Mabeso me, my son, cut post ; haul 

 post, my horse ; you, my post-office write, J\Ir. Scott." 



Charles Goodnight, Joseph Miller, President of the loi Ranch, 



