THE BUFFALO-RUNNERS 67 



At fording-places on the Qu Appelle and Saskatchewan 

 in Canada, and on the Upper Missouri, Yellowstone, 

 and Arkansas in the Western States, carcasses of buf 

 falo have been found where the stampeding herd 

 trampled the weak under foot, virtually building a 

 bridge of the dead over which the vast host rushed. 



Then there were &quot; the fairy rings,&quot; ruts like the 

 water trail, only running in a perfect circle, with the 

 hoofprints of countless multitudes in and outside the 

 ring. Two explanations were given of these. When 

 the calves were yet little, and the wild animals raven 

 ous with spring hunger, the bucks and old leaders 

 formed a cordon round the mothers and their young. 

 The late Colonel Bedson of Stony Mountain, Manitoba, 

 who had the finest private collection of buffalo in 

 America until his death ten years ago, when the herd 

 was shipped to Texas, observed another occasion when 

 the buffalo formed a circle. Of an ordinary winter 

 storm the herd took small notice except to turn backs 

 to the wind; but if to a howling blizzard were added 

 a biting north wind, with the thermometer forty de 

 grees below zero, the buffalo lay down in a crescent as 

 a wind-break to the young. Besides the &quot; fairy rings &quot; 

 and the fording-places, evidences of the buffaloes num 

 bers are found at the salt-licks, alkali depressions on 

 the prairie, soggy as paste in spring, dried hard as 

 rock in midsummer and retaining footprints like a 

 plaster cast; while at the wallows, where the buffalo 

 have been taking mud-baths as a refuge from vermin 

 and summer heat, the ground is scarred and ploughed 

 as if for ramparts. 



The comparison of the buffalo herds to the north- 

 land caribou has become almost commonplace; but it 



