154: FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



gling, dying victims." Having made up his mind to go a 

 certain way, it is almost impossible to swerve him from his 

 purpose, and he will rush heedless into sure destruction. 

 Two trains were " ditched " in one week on the Atchison, 

 Topeka, and Santa Fe Kailroad by herds of buffaloes rush- 

 ing blindly against and in front of them. Finally the con- 

 ductors "got the idea," and gave the original occupants of 

 the soil the right of way whenever they asked it. Daring 

 a voyage that I made down the upper Missouri in 1877, 

 our steamer more than once had to stop to allow swimming 

 herds to get out of the way, and once we completely keel- 

 hauled a sorry old bull. Yet, as Mr. Allen suggests, their 

 inertness may be exaggerated by writers, as their sagacity 

 certainly has been. This stupidity, unwariness, or liability 

 to demoralizing panic, places them at the mercy of the 

 hunter, who is their only enemy besides the wolves. In for- 

 mer times, young or weak animals straying from the herds, 

 and all the wounded and aged that could be separated from 

 their fellows, were quickly set upon and worried to death 

 by wolves ; but now these brutes have become so reduced 

 as not to form a serious check upon their increase. 



The early explorers of the Mississippi Valley believed 

 that the buffalo might be made to take the place of the 

 domestic ox in agricultural pursuits, and at the same time 



