The Bison or American Buffalo. 247 



seventy miles by thirty in extent ; the figures representing 

 his rough guess, made after travelling through the herd 

 crosswise, and upon knowing how long it took to pass a 

 given point going northward. This great herd of course 

 was not a solid mass of buffaloes ; it consisted of innumer- 

 able bands of every size, dotting the prairie within the 

 limits given. Mr. King was mounted on a somewhat 

 unmanageable horse. On one occasion in following a band 

 he wounded a large bull, and became so wedged in by the 

 maddened animals that he was unable to avoid the charge 

 of the bull, which was at its last gasp. Coming straight 

 toward him it leaped into the air and struck the afterpart 

 of the saddle full with its massive forehead. The horse 

 was hurled to the ground with a broken back, and King's 

 leg was likewise broken, while the bull turned a complete 

 somerset over them and never rose again. 



In the recesses of the Rocky Mountains, from Colorado 

 northward through Alberta, and in the depths of the sub- 

 arctic forest beyond the Saskatchewan, there have always 

 been found small numbers of the bison, locally called the 

 mountain buffalo and wood buffalo ; often indeed the old 

 hunters term these animals " bison," although they never 

 speak of the plains animals save as buffalo. They form a 

 slight variety of what was formerly the ordinary plains 

 bison, intergrading with it ; on the whole they are darker 

 in color, with longer, thicker hair, and in consequence 

 with the appearance of being heavier-bodied and shorter- 

 legged. They have been sometimes spoken of as forming 

 a separate species ; but, judging from my own limited 

 experience, and from a comparison of the many hides I 



