Ranching in the Bad Lands. 3 



were won from the Indians. They were their only remain- 

 ing great hunting-grounds, and towards the end of the 

 last decade all of the northern plains tribes went on the 

 war-path in a final desperate effort to preserve them. 

 After bloody fighting and protracted campaigns they were 

 defeated, and the country thrown open to the whites, 

 while the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad gave 

 immigration an immense impetus. There were great 

 quantities of game, especially buffalo, and the hunters 

 who thronged in to pursue the huge herds of the latter 

 were the rough forerunners of civilization. No longer 

 dreading the Indians, and having the railway on which to 

 transport the robes, they followed the buffalo in season 

 and out, until in 1883 the herds were practically destroyed. 

 But meanwhile the cattle-men formed the vanguard of the 

 white settlers. Already the hardy southern stockmen had 

 pressed up with their wild-looking herds to the very bor- 

 der of the dangerous land, and even into it, trusting to 

 luck and their own prowess for their safety ; and the in- 

 stant the danger was even partially removed, their cattle 

 swarmed northward along the streams. Some Eastern 

 men, seeing the extent of the grazing country, brought 

 stock out by the railroad, and the short-horned beasts 

 became almost as plenty as the wilder-looking southern 

 steers. At the present time, indeed, the cattle of these 

 northern ranges show more short-horn than long-horn 

 blood. 



Cattle-raising on the plains, as now carried on, 

 started in Texas, where the Americans had learned it from 

 the Mexicans .whom they dispossessed. It has only be- 



