70 STORIES OF BIRDS AND BEASTS 



be ; but the beef of the three-year-old, or the cows, is 

 as delicious as our best roast beef. 



" Only a part of the meat was eaten fresh, the rest 

 was dried in various ways and kept for further use ; for 

 the whole thought of the savage was given to self-pres- 

 ervation from two ghosts that crossed his path at every 

 step, his human enemies and starvation. Often the 

 last was the more cruel of the two. So the Buffalo 

 tongues were smoked and dried, the marrow from the 

 bones packed away in skins, while all the titbits were 

 pounded fine, mixed with melted fat, and sometimes 

 berries also, to make a sort of hash more nearly like 

 sausage-meat than anything else, which was called pern- 

 mican. When we think of the Buffalo, we must think 

 of the Indian also, and if the Indian did much at last 

 to send this beast brother into exile, he also has shared 

 it with him." 



" Have Indians and Buffaloes always lived in North 

 America," asked Olive, " and if they did not, where did 

 they come from ? " 



" Always is a long time, for when the earth was very 

 young there were no people anywhere. I suppose you 

 mean were the Indians the first people known to live 

 here. Yes, and they may have been the very first peo- 

 ple to live on this soil a race by themselves. At any 

 rate one of the first European discoverers to set foot on 

 the North American continent found the Indian here 

 and also the Buffalo. Strangely enough the first Buf- 

 falo described did not appear as a king of the plains, 

 but a captive in a Menagerie. 



" It was nearly four hundred years ago, when Monte- 

 zuma II was Emperor of Aztec Mexico, that a Men- 



