CHAPTER VII 



THE BUFFALO-RUNNERS 



IF the trapper had a crest like the knights of the 

 wilderness who lived lives of daredoing in olden times, 

 it should represent a canoe, a snow-shoe, a musket, a 

 beaver, and a buffalo. While the beaver was his quest 

 and the coin of the fur-trading realm, the buffalo was 

 the great staple on which the very existence of the 

 trapper depended. 



Bed and blankets and clothing, shields for war 

 time, sinew for bows, bone for the shaping of rude 

 lance-heads, kettles and bull-boats and saddles, roof 

 and rug and curtain wall for the hunting lodge, and, 

 most important of all, food that could be kept in any 

 climate for any length of time and combined the lightest 

 weight with the greatest nourishment all these were 

 supplied by the buffalo. 



From the Gulf of Mexico to the Saskatchewan and 

 from the Alleghanies to the Rockies the buffalo was to 

 the hunter what wheat is to the farmer. Moose and 

 antelope and deer were plentiful in the limited area of 

 a favoured habitat. Provided with water and grass 

 the buffalo could thrive in any latitude south of the 

 sixties, with a preference for the open ground of the 

 great central plains except when storms and heat drove 

 the herds to the shelter of woods and valleys. 

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