LET US GO AFIELD 



men, killers, and skinners. Sometimes one hunter 

 would keep them all busy with hides, though two 

 killers were usual ; and, indeed, in that time of West- 

 ern life, hunters were easy to find, for it was the 

 exception to see a man who was not a perfect rifle- 

 shot. 



The skinning of the dead buffalo took time, and 

 thirty or forty heads a day was the limit of what 

 the outfit would probably care to kill. The stretch- 

 ing and curing of the hides was slower work, though 

 as to the killing, that might be a matter of but an 

 hour or so. Sometimes it was done at one "stand" 

 that is to say, in one spot, where the concealed 

 hunter shot time after time into the confused bunch 

 of buffalo, which huddled up and did not dare to 

 run. You cannot see it today, but fifteen or twenty 

 years ago you might have seen it, this record of the 

 killer's work. You may still know districts where 

 the buffalo wallows are not yet all gone; perhaps 

 you know some corner where you can see a verified, 

 genuine buffalo trail, cut deep into the soil ; but one 

 does not know where you can find today that other 

 sort of record, the story written in a ring of white 

 skeletons, thirty, forty, or more, all lying on a space 

 not more than an acre in extent. 



Suppose you have seen this loose circle of scat- 

 tered bones marking a "stand" in the old buffalo 



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