96 The Wilderness Hunter 



the Indian tribes of the north; and he had wedded 

 wives in each of the tribes of the other half. A few 

 years before this time the great buffalo herds had 

 vanished, and the once swarming beaver had shared 

 the same fate; the innumerable horses and horned 

 stock of the cattlemen, and the daring rough riders 

 of the ranches, had supplanted alike the game and 

 the red and white wanderers who had followed it 

 with such fierce rivalry. When the change took 

 place the old fellow, with failing bodily powers, 

 found his life-work over. He had little taste for 

 the career of the desperado, horse-thief, highway- 

 man and mankiller, which not a few of the old 

 buffalo hunters adopted when their legitimate occu- 

 pation was gone; he scorned still more the life of 

 vicious and idle semi-criminality led by others of 

 his former companions who were of weaker mold. 

 Yet he could not do regular work. His existence 

 had been one of excitement, adventure, and restless 

 roaming, when it was not passed in lazy ease; his 

 times of toil and peril varied by fits of brutal revelry. 

 He had no kin, no ties of any kind. He would 

 accept no help, for his wants were very few, and he 

 was utterly self-reliant. He got meat, clothing, and 

 bedding from the antelope and deer he killed; the 

 spare hides and venison he bartered for what little 

 else he needed. So he built him his tepee in one of 

 the most secluded parts of the Bad Lands, where he 

 led the life of a solitary hunter, awaiting in grim 



