In Buffalo Days 
tonished by the multitudinous herds which 
they met with, the regularity of their move- 
ments, and the deep roads which they made 
in traveling from place to place. Many of the 
earlier references are to territory east of the 
Mississippi, but even within the last fifteen 
years buffalo were to be seen on the Western 
plains in numbers so great that an entirely 
sober and truthful account seems like fable. 
Describing the abundance of buffalo in a cer- 
tain region, an Indian once said to me, in the 
expressive sign-language of which all old 
frontiersmen have some knowledge: “The 
country was one robe.” 
Much has been written about their enor- 
mous abundance in the old days, but I have 
never read anything that I thought an exag- 
geration of their numbers as I have seen them. 
Only one who has actually spent months in 
traveling among them in those old days can 
credit the stories told about them. The trains 
of the Kansas Pacific Railroad used frequently 
to be detained by herds which were crossing 
the tracks in front of the engines; and in 1870, 
trains on which I was traveling were twice so 
held, in one case for three hours. When 
159 
