38 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



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 

 process 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 scat- 

 tered 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 north- 

 ern forests are left, that they can just barely 

 be reckoned among American game ; but who- 

 ever is so fortunate as to find any of these 

 animals must work his hardest, and show all 

 his skill as a hunter if he wishes to get one. 



In the fall of 1889 I heard that a very few 

 bison were still left around the head of Wis- 

 dom River. Thither 1 went and hunted faith- 

 fully ; there was plenty of game of other kind, 

 but of bison not a trace did we see. Never- 

 theless a few days later that same year I came 

 across these great wild cattle at a time when 

 I had no idea of seeing them. 



