A Sportsman 127 



point upon the route there passed westward, by actual 

 count, in sixty days, 9494 teams, having over fifty- 

 eight thousand head of horses, mules, and oxen. 



The emigration of 1866 was large and steady, un- 

 interrupted by Indian raids, the savages having been 

 driven far away from the routes. The plains, though 

 free of timber, are well watered, and covered with a 

 rich soil, which yields a heavy-bladed grass of the 

 most nutritious quality, and from which the cattle 

 employed in freighting to Colorado acquired a fatness 

 which well fitted them for the market. This grass 

 grows in a native state to a considerable height, and 

 could be cut for hay by thousands and millions of tons. 



Antelopes in large numbers were found upon the 

 plains, also rabbits of large size, wolves, ground-squir- 

 rels, grouse, snipe, curlews, etc. Immense herds of 

 buffalo roamed annually over the expanse, at times 

 so plentiful as to prevent for days the passage of teams. 

 At some seasons they could be seen by thousands and 

 tens of thousands, strung out over an area of from 

 fifty to one hundred miles in width. The Indians 

 slaughtered them in large numbers; and, after taking 

 from them favorite strips of meat, left their immense 

 bodies, weighing from six hundred to one thousand 

 pounds, to be eaten by wolves or to decay upon the 

 ground. 



The Civil War, and especially the Indian hostilities 

 in the plains, had largely distracted attention from 

 the Rocky Mountain region, and as no process for 

 working the refractory ores was known among a class 

 principally composed of ruralists money had become 

 very scarce; in fact, the Territory was very hard up 

 in a financial way, and a good honest American dollar 



