i8o The Winning of the West 



beasts; for when once the hunters had found out 

 the knack, the buffalo were easier slaughtered than 

 any other game. 28 



The hunters were the pioneers; but close behind 

 them came another set of explorers quite as hardy 

 and resolute. These were the surveyors. The men 

 of chain and compass played a part in the explora- 

 tion of the West scarcely inferior to that of the 

 heroes of axe and rifle. Often, indeed, the parts 

 were combined; Boone himself was a surveyor. 29 

 Vast tracts of Western land were continually being 

 allotted either to actual settlers or as bounties to 

 soldiers who had served against the French and In- 

 dians. These had to be explored and mapped and as 

 there was much risk as well as reward in the task, 

 it naturally proved attractive to all adventurous 

 young men who had some education, a good deal of 

 ambition, and not too much fortune. A great 

 number of young men of good families, like Wash- 

 ington and Clark, went into the business. Soon 

 after the return of Boone and the Long Hunters, 

 parties of surveyors came down the Ohio, 30 map- 



28 This continued to be the case until the buffalo were all 

 destroyed. When my cattle came to the Little Missouri, in 

 1882, buffalo were plenty; my men killed nearly a hundred 

 that winter, though tending the cattle ; yet an inexperienced 

 hunter not far from us, though a hardy plainsman, killed 

 only three in the whole time. See also Parkman's "Oregon 

 Trail" for an instance of a party of Missouri backwoodsmen 

 who made a characteristic failure in an attempt on a buffalo 

 band. 



29 See Appendix. 



30 An English engineer made a rude survey or table of dis- 

 tances of the Ohio in 1766. 



