246 Tlie Lordly Biiffalo. 



grizzly bear, could only be considered an occasional foe. 

 The Indians were its most dangerous enemies, but they 

 were without horses, and their weapons, bows and arrows, 

 were only available at close range ; so that a slight degree 

 of speed enabled buffalo to get out of the way of their 

 human foes when discovered, and on the open plains a 

 moderate development of the senses was sufficient to warn 

 them of the approach of the latter before they had come 

 up to the very close distance required for their primitive 

 weapons to take effect. Thus the strength, size, and gre- 

 garious habits of the brute were sufficient for a protection 

 against most foes ; and a slight degree of speed and 

 moderate development of the senses served as adequate 

 guards against the grizzlies and bow-bearing foot Indians. 

 Concealment and the habit of seeking lonely and remote 

 places for a dwelling would have been of no service. 



But the introduction of the horse, and shortly after- 

 wards the incoming of white hunters carrying long-range 

 rifles, changed all this. The buffaloes' gregarious habits 

 simply rendered them certain to be seen, and made it a 

 matter of perfect ease to follow them up ; their keeping to 

 the open plains heightened their conspicuousness, while 

 their senses were too dull to discover their foes at such a 

 distance as to nullify the effects of the long rifles ; their 

 speed was not such as to enable them to flee from a horse- 

 man ; and their size and strength merely made them too 

 clumsy either to escape from or to contend with their foes. 

 Add to this the fact that their hides and flesh were 

 valuable, and it is small wonder that under the new order 

 of things they should have vanished with such rapidity. 



