The Bison or American Buffalo 5 



a hundred individuals has been in existence 

 since 1884. 



The first great break followed the building 

 of the Union Pacific Railway. All the buffa- 

 loes of the middle region were then destroyed, 

 and the others were split into two vast sets of 

 herds, the northern and the southern. The 

 latter were destroyed first, about 1878 ; the for- 

 mer not until 1883. My own chief experience 

 with buffaloes was obtained in the latter year, 

 among small bands and scattered individuals, 

 near my ranch on the Little Missouri ; I have 

 related it elsewhere. But two of my kinsmen 

 were more fortunate and took part in the chase 

 of these lordly beasts when the herds still 

 darkened the prairie as far as the eye could 

 see. 



During the first two months of 1877, my 

 brother Elliott, then a lad not seventeen years 

 old, made a buffalo-hunt toward the edge of 

 the Staked Plains in northern Texas. He was 

 thus in at the death of the southern herds ; for 

 all, save a few scattering bands, were de- 

 stroyed within two years of this time. He was 

 with my cousin, John Roosevelt, and they went 

 out on the range with six other adventurers. 

 It was a party of just such young men as fre- 

 quently drift to the frontier. All were short 



