In Buffalo Days 



tonished by the multitudinous herds which 

 they met with, the regularity of their move- 

 ments, and the deep roads which they made 

 in traveling from place to place. Many of the 

 earlier references are to territory east of the 

 Mississippi, but even within the last fifteen 

 years buffalo were to be seen on the Western 

 plains in numbers so great that an entirely 

 sober and truthful account seems like fable. 

 Describing the abundance of buffalo in a cer- 

 tain region, an Indian once said to me, in the 

 expressive sign-language of which all old 

 frontiersmen have some knowledge : " The 

 country was one robe." 



Much has been written about their enor- 

 mous abundance in the old days, but I have 

 never read anything that I thought an exag- 

 geration of their numbers as I have seen them. 

 Only one who has actually spent months in 

 traveling among them in those old days can 

 credit the stories told about them. The trains 

 of the Kansas Pacific Railroad used frequently 

 to be detained by herds which were crossing 

 the tracks in front of the engines; and in 1870, 

 trains on which I was traveling were twice so 

 held, in one case for three hours. When 



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