4 Hunting the Grisly 



lation of French Metis, or Half-breeds, on the 

 Red River, as well as to those dauntless and 

 archetypical wanderers, the white hunters and 

 trappers. Their numbers slowly diminished, 

 but the decrease was very gradual until after 

 the Civil War. They were not destroyed by 

 the settlers, but by the railways and the skin 

 hunters. 



After the ending of the Civil War, the work 

 of constructing trans-continental railway lines 

 was pushed forward with the utmost vigor. 

 These supplied cheap and indispensable, but 

 hitherto wholly lacking, means of transporta- 

 tion to the hunters ; and at the same time the 

 demand for buffalo robes and hides became 

 very great, while the enormous numbers of 

 the beasts, and the comparative ease with 

 which they were slaughtered, attracted 

 throngs of adventurers. The result was such 

 a slaughter of big game as the world had never 

 before seen; never before were so many large 

 animals of one species destroyed in so short a 

 time. Several million buffaloes were slain. 

 In fifteen years from the time the destruction 

 fairly began the great herds were extermi- 

 nated. In all probability there are not now, 

 all told, five hundred head of wild buffaloes 

 on the American continent; and no herd of 



