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214 



THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



for many days. The culinary apparatus of a whole party consists of a single 

 large coffee-pot, a "Dutch oven," and a skillet, and the table-set of a tin cup 

 to each man, the latter vessel often consisting merely of a battered fruit-can. 

 Each man's hunting-knife not only does duty in butchering the buffalo, but is 

 the sole implement used in despatching his food, supplying the places of spoon 

 and fork as' well as knife. The bill of Hire consists of strong coffee, often 

 without milk or sugar, " yeast-powder bread," and buffalo meat fried in buf- 



e party encircle the skillet, dip their 



When bread fails, as 



falo tallow. When the meal is cooked 

 bread in the fat, and eat their meat with their fingers. 

 often happens, "buffalo straight," or buffalo meat alone, affords them nourish- 

 ing sustenance. Occasionally, however, the fare is varied with the addition 

 of potatoes and canned fruits. They sleep generally in the open air, in win- 

 ter as well as in summer, subjected to every inclemency of the weather. As 

 may well be imagined, a buffalo-hunter, at the end of the season, is by no 

 means prepossessing in his appearance, being, in addition to his filthy aspect, 

 a paradise for hordes of nameless parasites. They are yet a rollicking set, 

 and occasionally include men of intelligence, who formerly possessed an ordi- 

 nary degree of refinement. Generally none are more conscious of their 

 unfitness for civilized society than themselves, and after a few years of such 

 free border-life they can hardly be induced to abandon it and resume the 



restraints of civilization. 



Althou<di successful in the pursuit of the buffalo, their success arises from 



the unsuspicious nature of their victims rather than from skill in the use or 

 selection of their arms. The improved breech-loading United States musket 

 is their favorite weapon, and most of them will use no other. A few employ 

 Sharp's and Winchester rifles ; arms of small calibre, however, they generally 

 despise. Yet with these heavy arms, used, as they are, at short range, only 

 about one shot in three proves fatal, many of the poor beasts getting but a 

 broken leg in place of a fatal shot.* This is owing in part to carelessness or 

 lack of skill in shooting, and in part to the inaccuracy of the arms. However 

 good the gun may be originally, it soon deteriorates and is eventually ruined 



s-uns, take good care of 



by rough usage. A few of the hunters have go 



them, and use them effectively, killing their game as readily at three hundred 



and four hundred yards as do the others at one fourth that distance. A rifle 



* When returning from a buffalo-liunt on the Kansas plains in January, 1872, my.party fell in with a 

 small band of these unfortunates, about thirty in number, nearly all of whom were in some way maimed, 



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the greater part having broken legs. 







