XI 



OUR WOOD-BISON HUNT 



WOOD-BISON HEAD BROUGHT 

 OUT BY THE AUTHOR 



THE wood-bison is the once familiar species of our own 

 Western plains, grown heavier in his retirement from the 

 old life, when the trail of his 

 hunter never grew cold, and 

 he rested neither by day nor 

 night. He is the same animal 

 with a more rounded stern, ac- 

 quired by his life of compara- 

 tive restfulness, and a heavi- 

 er, darker robe to protect him 

 from the colder climate of his 

 adopted home. How long he 

 has been in this country there 

 are no means of knowing. The present generation of 

 Indians, and their fathers before them, have always hunt- 

 ed him in a desultory way, but there are no traditions of 

 an earlier bison, and the country in which he roams tells 

 no tales. There are no well-beaten trails, such as those 

 which on the plains last even to the present day, to re- 

 mind us of the vast herds that have been sacrificed to 

 man's greed. 



The muskeg where he ranges in the Northland shows 

 no trail, and if it did it would remain undiscovered, for it 

 is impassable to the hunter in summer, and in winter is 

 covered by snow to the depth of two feet. Really little 



