ANIMALS OP NORTH AMERICA. 101 



The following account of the last buffalo hunt in 1802, is 

 taken from a Red River paper : " From the Pembina Moun- 

 tain, the usual rendezvous, the hunters set out about the 

 middle of September 105 riders and some 600 carts. 

 Buffaloes were not found in any numbers till they came near 

 the Little Souris, where they killed 500. Here they stopped 

 a week making pemmican,* in full view of a great number 

 of wolves, AY ho were prowling about in large numbers, and 

 with such audacity, that dozens were seen at a time not half 

 a mile from camp. About 400 of these gentry were captured 

 on the trip. Six hundred fine cows were killed, whereupon 

 the bull's meat, with which they had previously loaded them- 

 selves, was thrown away. Scratched faces, sprains, contu- 

 sions of all kinds fell to the lot of numbers of the hunters. 

 He was a bold rider, and had an extra fine horse, who 

 escaped performing a somersault in these wild reckless races 

 over the ground honey-combed with badger and fox holes, 

 and crannies of all sorts and sizes." 



The Bison winters amid the timber and grass of northern 

 Texas, New Mexico, and Arkansas, and by the sources of 

 the Red River, and the Cimarone ; half famished and mise- 

 rable it starts with the springing grass, and in April or early 

 in May turns its face northwards in quest of "fresh fields 

 and pastures new." Travelling in countless legions, suffi- 

 cient to cover whole townships, driven onward with hunger, 

 it crosses successively the Arkansas, the Smoky Hill, and 

 shows a dark front for miles along the south bank of the 

 Platte : and here it is, that meeting the emigrant trains 

 bound for the Pacific coast, collisions ensue, when thousands 

 of them are shot in mere wantonness by hunters already 

 gorged and overladen with buffalo meat. When food, how- 

 ever, is the object, and the hides are good for nothing in 

 spring and summer, cows and calves are marked out for 



* NOTE. Pemmican chopped buffalo meat, pounded with corn, and dried in 

 the sun closely pressed together. 



