THE BUFFALO-RUNNERS 73 



but it was always at the sacrifice of two or three ponies 

 lives. 



In the park specimens of buffalo a curious deterio 

 ration is apparent. On Lord Strathcona s farm in 

 Manitoba, where the buffalo still have several hundred 

 acres of ranging-ground and are nearer to their wild 

 state than elsewhere, they still retain their leonine 

 splendour of strength in shoulders and head; but at 

 Banff only the older ones have this appearance, the 

 younger generation, like those of the various city parks, 

 gradually assuming more dwarfed proportions about 

 the shoulders, with a suggestion of a big, round-headed, 

 clumsy sheep. 



Between the Arkansas and the Saskatchewan buf 

 falo were always plentiful enough for an amateur s 

 hunt ; but the trapper of the plains, to whom the hunt 

 meant food and clothing and a roof for the coming year, 

 favoured two seasons: (1) the end of June, when he 

 had brought in his packs to the fur post and the win 

 ter s trapping was over and the fort full of idle hunters 

 keen for the excitement of the chase; (2) in midwinter, 

 when that curious lull came over animal life, before 

 the autumn stores had been exhausted and before the 

 spring forage began. 



In both seasons the buffalo-robes were prime : sleek 

 and glossy in June before the shedding of the fleece, 

 with the fur at its greatest length ; fresh and clean and 

 thick in midwinter. But in midwinter the hunters 

 were scattered, the herds broken in small battalions, 

 the climate perilous for a lonely man who might be 

 tempted to track fleeing herds many miles from a 

 known course. South of the Yellowstone the individual 



