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162 



THE AMEEiCAF Eiso:^rs; 



soon have them around iis in abundance/'* This locality was on the head- 

 waters of the Cheyenne. Again, in speaking of the valley of the Yellow- 

 stonCj he says : " This valley has long been the home of countless herds of 

 buffalo When my party first reached the bluff overlooking the Yel- 

 lowstone the sight was one which in a few years will have passed awa}^ for- 

 ever. I estimated that about fifteen miles in length of the wide valley was 

 in view. The entire tract of forty or fifty square miles w^as covered with 

 buffalo as thickly as in former days in the West (when cattle were driven to 

 an Eastern market) a pasture-field would be which was intended only to 

 furnislx subsistence to a large drove for a single night. I will not venture 

 an estimate of their probable numbers/' t ' 



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In 1873 I made a journey from Fort Rice, on the Missouri^ to the Yellow- 

 stone and Musselshell Rivers, accompanying the " Yellowstone Expedition " 



of that year (General D. S. Stanley commanding) as naturalist of the expe- 

 dition. From my report on the collections made I quote the following : 

 "Recent signs of the buffalo were first met with in the valley of the Yellow- 



stone, near the mouth of the Rosebud, — tracks of single old bulls that had 

 passed down to the river for water within a period of a few wrecks. Above 

 this point considerable numbers seemed to have frequented the river valley 



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dm^ing the early part of the season (1873), and tracks but a few days old 

 AYcre frequent for the last ten miles before reaching Pompey's Pillar. The 

 first buffalo seen was observed about twelve miles west of Pompey's Pillar. 



Eight miles 



further w^est, on the divide between the Yellowstone and the 



Musselshell, we found laro-e herds had a:razed but a dav or two before our 



arrival, and fresh tracks of cows and calves, as well as of 



s, were abun- 



sight 

 They 



dant. From this point to the Musselshell we were frequently in 

 of large bands, and quite a number of individuals were killed, 

 moved off rapidly, however, as we approached, and at no time were more 

 than a few hundred in sight at once. We found later that the valley of the 

 Musselshell and its adjoining prairies had been the recent feeding-ground of 

 large herds, immense numbers having evidently spent the early part of the 

 season there. They seemed not, however, to have visited the valley in 

 large numbers before for many years, as all the trails and other signs had 

 evidently been made wuthin the few weeks immediately preceding our ar- 

 rival. Traces of ancient trails remained^ but they were few and insignificant 



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* Exploration of the Yellowstone, p. 27. 

 f Ibid., p. 11. 



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