172 THE OX FAMILY 



yards of the herd, then dashing on at full speed, until 

 lost in the immense multitude of buffaloes scouring the 

 plains in every direction," The runners succeeded in 

 driving numbers of the buffalo to an appointed camp- 

 ing-ground, " where they were killed hard by the 

 camp, and the flesh transported thither without diffi- 

 culty." 



In 1869, when the first trans-continental railway was 

 opened for business, the range of the bison was cut in 

 two. The number of the animals was much reduced 

 for a long distance on either side of the track. Soon 

 there was a wide avenue between two vast herds (one 

 to the north and one to the south), where few animals 

 were to be seen, and near the railway they were ex- 

 terminated. The southern herd, which extended from 

 Kansas and Texas west to the Rocky Mountains, was 

 not long afterward invaded by the Kansas Pacific and 

 the Atchison Pacific Railways, and in a few years the 

 bison ceased to exist in the South. The northern 

 herd held out somewhat longer in the Dakotas and 

 Montana and until the Northern Pacific Railway was 

 built, when the same results followed as in the South. 

 In 1880 the northern road was finished and open for 

 business as far west as Bismarck, Dak., and the bison 

 were still abundant from the Missouri River to the 

 Rocky Mountains. The following year the railway 

 reached the valley of the Yellowstone and the last great 

 slaughter began. In 1883 only a few straggling bands 

 were left, and soon thereafter the buffalo were practi- 

 cally extinct everywhere in the United States. It is no 

 exaggeration to say that billions of animals were slain 

 in less than a score of years. There has never been 



