THE BISON i;i 



the hides shipped. Lewis and Clarke, Captain Bonne- 

 ville, Colonel Dodge, and others left full descriptions of 

 the immense multitudes of these animals, and many liv- 

 ing writers, not least among them William F. Cody, 

 more familiarly known as " Buffalo Bill," have told us 

 of the great herds they saw, and of the number slain 

 by their o\vn guns. An Indian is reported to have said 

 "the country w\as one robe." When the railways 

 were built across their range, the great herds of bison 

 stopped and even overturned trains of cars. There is 

 a record of one train being held up for three hours to 

 allow a herd to pass in front of it. Colonel Dodge tells 

 us that " trains were thrown from the tracks of the At- 

 chison Pacific Railway by the bison twice in one week." 

 Grinnell says they dashed into rivers and swam against 

 the sides of steamboats. When the buffalo started in a 

 certain direction it was next to impossible to divert 

 them and dangerous to be caught in ivont of them 

 unmounted. The animals behind crowded upon and 

 pushed those in front, so that the leaders could not 

 stop if they would, and often great numbers of the ani- 

 mals were drowned in streams and lost in quicksands. 

 All writers complain of the inadequacy of our lan- 

 guage to describe the great herds. Captain Bonne- 

 ville tells us that "as far as the eye could reach, the 

 country seemed absolutely blackened by innumerable 

 herds." No language, he said, could convey an idea 

 of the vast living mass thus presented to his eye. At 

 another time he speaks of plains "absolutely swarm- 

 ing with buffalo," and says, "it was a beautiful sight to 

 see the runners, as they are called, advancing in col- 

 umn at a slow trot until within two hundred and fifty 



