74: THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



hunter pursued the buffalo as he pursued deer by still- 

 hunting; for though the buffalo was keen of scent, he 

 was dull of sight, except sideways on the level, and was 

 not easily disturbed by a noise as long as he did not see 

 its cause. 



Behind the shelter of a mound and to leeward of 

 the herd the trapper might succeed in bringing down 

 what would be a creditable showing in a moose or 

 deer hunt ; but the trapper was hunting buffalo for their 

 robes. Two or three robes were not enough from a 

 large herd; and before he could get more there was 

 likely to be a stampede. Decoy work was too slow for 

 the trapper who was buffalo-hunting. So was track 

 ing on snow-shoes, the way the Indians hunted north 

 of the Yellowstone. A wounded buffalo at close range 

 was quite as vicious as a wounded grisly; and it did 

 not pay the trapper to risk his life getting a pelt for 

 which the trader would give him only four or five 

 dollars worth of goods. 



The Indians hunted buffalo by driving them over 

 a precipice where hunters were stationed on each side 

 below, or by luring the herd into a pound or pit by 

 means of an Indian decoy masking under a buffalo-hide. 

 But the precipice and pit destroyed too many hides ; and 

 if the pound were a sort of cheval-de-frise or corral con 

 verging at the inner end, it required more hunters than 

 were ever together except at the incoming of the spring 

 brigades. 



When there were many hunters and countless buf 

 falo, the white blood of the plains trapper preferred 

 a fair fight in an open field not the indiscriminate 

 carnage of the Indian hunt; so that the greatest buf 

 falo-runs took place after the opening of spring. The 



