1 62 Reminiscences of 



race for gain after the holocaust of destruction for the 

 carbon works of Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri. 



A competent authority has estimated that between 

 the years 1868 and 1880, two and a half million dollars 

 were paid out in the three States mentioned for buffalo 

 bones gathered on the prairies at eight dollars per ton ; 

 and if the estimate of one hundred buffaloes to one ton 

 of bones has been correctly calculated, it will be ob- 

 served that the bones of over thirty millions of buffalo 

 would be required to furnish the amount purchased. 



In 1870, the year the Kansas Pacific Railroad was 

 completed from Kansas City to Denver, I took passage 

 from Denver to Kansas City over this route, accom- 

 panied by three friends, Edward E. Poor, P. Adams 

 Ames, and Clarence Denny. We had been out to Cali- 

 fornia, making a short visit there, and were on our 

 way back to the East. We were attracted by the re- 

 ports we heard about buffalo being scattered along the 

 railroad route, which my friends were anxious to see, 

 but little did we reckon upon the delay and the appre- 

 hensions we were to experience. It was in the early 

 part of April, and the heavy storms of the winter were 

 over. There had been, however, some light flurries of 

 snow and hail, and, although the plains were free and 

 clear, the cuts through which the railroad passed were 

 choked up to some extent with snow and sand, which 

 had to be cleared out, and the forces at the intervening 

 stations were light and inadequate for the work, so 

 that we had constant delays over the route and were 

 five days in making the passage, which on regular time 

 now is made in thirty hours. 



Half-way across we came into large herds of buffalo, 

 and in the distance we saw Indians pursuing and kill- 



