Hunting in the Cattle Country 



larly situated. In 1880 the Northern Pacific 

 Railroad was built nearly to the edge of the 

 Bad Lands, and the danger of Indian war was 

 totally eliminated. A great inrush of hunters 

 followed. In 1881, 1882 and 1883 buffalo, elk 

 and blacktail were slaughtered in enormous 

 numbers, and a good many whitetail and 

 prongbuck were killed too. By 1884 the 

 game had been so thinned out that hide hunt- 

 ing and meat hunting had ceased to pay. A 

 few professional hunters remained, but most 

 of them moved elsewhere, or were obliged to 

 go into other business. From that time the 

 hunting has chiefly been done by the ranch- 

 ers and occasional small grangers. In conse- 

 quence, for six or eight years the game about 

 held its own — the antelope, as I have said 

 above, at one time increasing ; but the gradual 

 increase in the number of actual settlers is 

 now beginning to tell, and the game is becom- 

 ing slowly scarcer. 



The only wild animals that have increased 

 with us are the wolves. These are more plen- 

 tiful now than they were ten years ago. I 

 have never known them so numerous or so 

 daring in their assaults on stock as in 1894. 

 They not only kill colts and calves, but full- 



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