American Big-Game Hunting 
railroad travel first began on this road, the 
engineers tried the experiment of running 
through these passing herds; but after their 
engines had been thrown from the tracks they 
learned wisdom, and gave the buffalo the right 
of way. Two or three years later, in the 
country between the Platte and Republican 
rivers, I saw a closely massed herd of buffalo 
so vast that I dared not hazard a guess as 
to its numbers; and in later years I have 
traveled, for weeks at a time, in northern 
Montana without ever being out of sight of 
buffalo. These were not in close herds, ex- 
cept now and then when alarmed and running, 
but were usually scattered about, feeding or 
lying down on the prairie at a little distance 
from one another, much as domestic cattle 
distribute themselves in a pasture or on the 
range. As far as we could see on every side 
of the line of march, and ahead, the hillsides 
were dotted with dark forms, and the field- 
glass revealed yet others stretched out on 
every side, in one continuous host, to the most 
distant hills. Thus was gained a more just 
notion of their numbers than could be had in 
any other way, for the sight of this limitless 
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