114 



The Bison 



the buffalo hides brought $2.00 each, and that 

 buffalo were to be had for the trouble of shooting 

 them, crowded into the range. 



Then there began along the Platte Valley in 

 Nebraska, a scene of slaughter w^iich has seldom 

 been equalled. The country was full of buffalo 

 skinners. Each hunter had his teams, and his 

 gangs of skinners which followed him about from 

 place to place, and cared for the hides of the 

 beasts which he killed. In some places the only 

 water accessible was the Platte River, and here 

 the buffalo came to drink. Here, too, the hunters, 

 concealed in ravines or in rifle-pits that they had 

 dug, shot down the beasts one by one, as they 

 came to water, and, indeed, formed so complete a 

 cordon along the river's banks, that the buffalo 

 could not get through and turned back into the 

 hills. When at night the thirsty herds tried to 

 approach the river under cover of darkness, they 

 found that the hunters had built along the bottom 

 great fires, which they kept up all night, and 

 which the scared buffalo did not dare to pass. 



It took but a little time to split the herd which 

 for centuries had passed across the valley north 

 and south with the seasons. It was about 1870 

 when this work began, and in 1874 the buffalo 



