In Buffalo Days 
feathers and heads on their arrows, the hair 
used to stuff cushions, and later saddles, 
strands of the long black beard to ornament 
articles of wearing-apparel and implements 
of war, such as shields and quivers. The 
sinews lying along the back gave them 
thread and bowstrings, and backed their 
bows. The horns furnished spoons and 
ladles, and ornamented their war-bonnets. 
Water-buckets were made from the lining of 
the paunch. The skin of the hind leg 
cut off above the pastern, and again a short 
distance above the hock, was once used for a 
moccasin or boot. Fly-brushes were made 
from the skin of the tail dried on sticks. 
Knife-sheaths, quivers, bow-cases, gun-cov- 
ers, saddle-cloths, and a hundred other useful 
and necessary articles, all were furnished by 
the buffalo. 
The Indians killed some smaller game, as 
elk, deer, and antelope, but for food their de- 
pendence was on the buffalo. But before the 
coming of the whites their knives and arrow- 
heads were merely sharpened stones, wea- 
pons which would be inefficient against such 
great, thick-skinned beasts. Even under the 
12" 181 
