i^o The Bison 



to cross these animals with domestic cattle will 

 ever be attempted. The days of free ranging, 

 where the cattle are turned out on the prairie to 

 look after themselves, winter and summer, are 

 almost over, and year by year the area of the free 

 range is becoming more and more contracted. 

 The advantages of great size and a valuable robe 

 would still be an attraction to the farmer ; but the 

 hardiness which enables the half-breed animal to 

 endure almost any winter weather will soon cease 

 to be required, because the cattle of almost all 

 the western country will be kept under fence, and 

 fed on hay during the winter. 



From time immemorial the buffalo furnished 

 food to the Indians, and with the coming into the 

 land of the white man it supported him also. 

 What the primitive method was by which the 

 Indians hunted buffalo we do not know, but at 

 the time the redmen became known to the 

 whites, when they were footmen, the only 

 method of securing this animal was by the "sur- 

 round, or by driving it into pens from which the 

 buffalo could not escape, and where they were 

 easily destroyed. Such pens were built at the 

 foot of cut bluffs or low cliffs, over which the 

 buffalo were driven ; or, in the more open and 



