MOUNTAIN OR WOOD BUFFALO. 145 



morning he enjoys a bountiful breakfast of the rich 

 nutritious grasses, quenches his thirst with the finest 

 water, and retiring just within the line of jungle, where, 

 himself unseen, he can scan the open, he couches himself 

 in the long grass and reposes in comfort and security 

 until appetite calls him to his dinner late in the evening. 

 Unlike their plains relatives, there is no stupid staring at 

 an intruder. At the first symptom of danger they disap- 

 pear like magic in the thicket, and never stop until far 

 removed from even the apprehension of pursuit. I have 

 many times come upon their fresh tracks, upon the beds 

 from which they had first sprung in alarm, but I have 

 never even seen one. 



I have wasted much time and a great deal of wind in 

 vain endeavours to add one of these animals to my bag. 

 My figure is no longer adapted to mountain climbing, 

 and the possession of a bison's head of my own killing is 

 one of my blighted hopes. 



Several of my friends have been more fortunate, but 

 I know of no sportsman who has bagged more than one. 1 



Old mountaineers and trappers have given me wonder- 

 ful accounts of the numbers of these animals in all the 

 mountain region ' many years ago ; ' and I have been 

 informed by them that their present rarity is due to the 

 great snow-storm of 18445, of which I have already 

 spoken as destroying the plains buffalo in the Laramie 

 country. 



I ought to say here, however, that experience has 

 taught me that the stories of these worthies must be taken 

 with many grains of allowance. As a rule they regard 

 every man who does not lead their life, who is not as 

 unkempt, greasy, and filthy as themselves, as a ' green- 

 horn ' whom it is their privilege and their duty to ' stuff' 



1 The author is in error here, as, in a point on the Tarryall range of 

 mountains, between Pike's Peak and the South Park, in the autumn of 

 1871, two mountain buffalo were killed in one afternoon. The skin of the 

 finer was presented to Dr. Frank Buckland. W.B. 



L 



