246 The Wilderness Htmter, 



buffalo bands showed through the dust clouds, coming on 

 with a thunderous roar like that of surf. Camp was a mile 

 away, and the stampede luckily passed to one side of it. 

 Watching his chance he finally dodged back to the tent, 

 and all that afternoon watched the immense masses of 

 buffalo, as band after band tore to the brink of the bluffs 

 on one side, raced do^n them, rushed through the water, 

 up the bluffs on the other side, and again off over the 

 plain, churning the sandy, shallow stream into a ceaseless 

 tumult. When darkness fell there was no apparent 

 decrease in the numbers that were passing, and all through 

 that nicrht the continuous roar showed that the herds were 

 still threshing across the river. Towards dawn the sound 

 at last ceased, and General Walker arose somewhat irri- 

 tated, as he had reckoned on killing an ample supply of 

 meat, and he supposed that there would be now no bison 

 left south of the river. To his astonishment, when he 

 strolled up on the bluffs and looked over the plain, it was 

 still covered far and wide with groups of buffalo, grazing 

 quietly. Apparently there were as many on that side as 

 ever, in spite of the many scores of thousands that must 

 have crossed over the river during the stampede of the 

 afternoon and night. The barren-ground caribou is the 

 only American animal which is now ever seen in such 

 enormous herds. 



In 1862 Mr. Clarence King, while riding along the 

 overland trail through western Kansas, passed through a 

 great buffalo herd, and was himself injured in an encounter 

 with a bull. The great herd was then passing north, and 

 Mr. King reckoned that it must have covered an area nearly 



