^^3 



t 



i 



THE AMEEICAIT BIS0:N-S; 



145 



? 





the Union Pacific Eailroacl and the consequent opening up of the country to 

 settlement, has efiected a wider separation of the herds, the buffaloes retiring 

 every year further and further from their persecutors. None are now found 

 for a long distance to the north of this road, and they approach it from the 

 southward only along that portion situated between Fort Kearney and the 

 Forks of the Platte. In treating of the '^ Southern Herd/' as the southern 

 division is commonly termed, it will be found convenient to trace first its 

 extirpation over the region to the eastward, and afterw^ards to the westward, 



of its present range. 



As previously stated, Nuttall found buffaloes in 1819 in Southwestei^n 



II 



Arkansas and the adjoining portions of the Indian Territory.* Pike, how- 

 ever, in 1806, first met with these animals on the divide between the sources 

 of the Osao-e River and those of the Neosho Fork of the Arkansas, near the 

 98th meridian, or near Council Grove in Eastern Kansas, and reports that 

 they were already nearly exterminated over the hunting-grounds of the 

 Osages and Pawnees. t In 1820 Major Long found no large herds east of 

 the mouth of the Little Arkansas, near the 98th meridian. At the Great 

 Bend of the Arkansas, however, he met with them for several days "in vast 

 and almost continuous herds." $ Catlings "Outline Map of Indian localities 

 in 1833 " § purports -to give also the range of the buffalo, but none are repre- 



sented as occurring between the Kansas 



r 



and Arkansas Rivers east of the 



99th meridian, but in his account of his visit to the Comanche country he 

 speaks of meeting with buffaloes about forty miles east of the junction of the 

 False Washita and Red Rivers, or near the 96th meridian. 



General Doniphan, during his march in 1846 from Fort Leavenworth to 



Santa Fe, used bois de vache for fuel when passing the head of the Little Ar- 



kansas, and first met with herds of buffaloes on the Arkansas at Pawnee 



r 



Ranch, near the present site of Fort Lamed. ][ The previous year Lieuten- 



a well-attested factj that when the emigration first commenced, travelling trains were frequently detained 

 for hours by immense herds crossing their track, and in such numbers that it was impossible to drive 

 through them. In many instances it was quite difficult to prevent their own loose cattle from mmghng 

 with the buffaloes, of which they did not seem to be at all afraid/' — .Sa// Lalce Expedition^ p. 34. 



* Travels into the Arkansas Country, pp. 149, 150. 



t Pike (Z. M.), Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi, and to the Sources of the Arkansas, Kan- 

 sas, La Platte, and Pierre Jaunc Ilivers, etc., in the years 1805, 1806, and 1807. 



X Long's Exped. from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mts., Vol. II, pp. 204, 207. 



§ Catlin (0.), North American Indians, Vol. I^ map. 



II Ibid., Vol. II, p 4G. 



U Hughes (J. T), Doniphan's Expedition, pp. 43, 47. 



-A: 



