72 GAAIE ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Smoky Hill Road in Kansas and Colorado. The discussion at 

 that time, resulted in the adoption of some measures to protect the 

 buffalo, though it is to be hoped that ere long still more stringent 

 laws may be enacted and enforced. But we have just now to 

 speak of a country distant from the railroads, out of the way of 

 the average tourist, and far from the haunts even of the gentleman 

 sportsman ; we refer to the territory lying between the Missouri 

 River and the main divide of the Rocky Mountains, north of the 

 Union Pacific Railroad. It is in this region that the most abundant 

 supplies of wild game are to be found, and it is here that these 

 animals are slaughtered for their hides alone, by the professional 

 hunter. 



Buffalo, elk, mule deer and antelope suffer most, and in the 

 order in which they are here mentioned. They are destroyed with- 

 out regard to season ; the hides only are taken and the meat left to 

 feed the wolves, or to rot when the spring opens. We know directly 

 of thirty-four cow Elk killed out of a band of forty, about the mid- 

 dle of April, 1875, by one man. The snows were deep, and the 

 butcher followed the poor animals until all but six were slain. 

 Each of these animals, if allowed to live, would have produced a 

 calf in a little over a month after the time of its slaughter. Here 

 then were sixty-eight elk killed by one man in a day and a half. 

 It is estimated from reliable information, that in the winter of 

 1874-5, during the deep snows, over three thousand elk were killed 

 for their hides in the valley of the Yellowstone, between the mouth 

 of Trail Creek and the Hot Springs. For the territories of 

 Wyoming and Montana, the destruction must have been tv/enty 

 times as great. An elk skin is worth from $2.50 to $4, and to 

 secure that pitiful sum this beautiful life is taken, and from three 

 to five hundred pounds of the most delicate meat is left on the 

 ground. 



A buffalo hide is worth $1.50 in September, $2 in October, 

 and $2.50 in November, and at those prices many men can be 

 found to do the work of butchery. For, as many of us know by 

 experience, a man without any pretensions to being a skilful hunt- 

 er can slaughter a dozen or two buffalo in a day wherever they are 

 numerous. Mule deer and antelope are more difficult to kill, but 

 in these days of breech-loading rifles, a fair shot can kill several out 



