28 Hunting the Grisly 



any other sense, the true game of the plains 

 being the prong-buck, the most keen-sighted 

 of American animals. On the other hand, the 

 bison's hearing, of little avail on the plains, is 

 of much assistance in the woods; -and its ex- 

 cellent nose helps equally in both places. 



Though it was always more difficult to kill 

 the bison of the forests and mountains than 

 the bison of the prairie, yet now that the 

 species is, in its wild state, hovering on the 

 brink of extinction, the difficulty is immeasur- 

 ably increased. A merciless and terrible proc 

 ess of natural selection, in which the agents 

 were rifle-bearing hunters, has left as the last 

 survivors in a hopeless struggle for existence 

 only the wariest of the bison and those gifted 

 with the sharpest senses. That this was true 

 of the last lingering individuals that survived 

 the great slaughter on the plains is well shown 

 by Mr. Hornaday in his graphic account of 

 his campaign against the few scattered buffalo 

 which still lived in 1886 between the Missouri 

 and the Yellowstone, along the Big Dry. The 

 bison of the plains and the prairies have now 

 vanished; and so few of their brethren of the 

 mountains and the northern forests are left, 

 that they can just barely be reckoned among 

 American game; but whoever is so fortunate 



