14 Introductory 



sylvania, while they penetrated through the 

 Rockies to the Cascade range, so that they 

 were quite plentiful in parts of Oregon. 

 They also crossed the border into Mexico, 

 while they frequently wandered as far north 

 as the Arctic circle. Generally speaking, 

 however, their range was the great American 

 plains, bounded by its eastern and western 

 mountain chains, and by the Mexican border 

 on the south, and the Saskatchewan River 

 on the north. 



Early in the last century Boone, Crocket, 

 and their kind, together with other settlers, 

 crossed the Alleghany Mountains to the 

 eastern portion of the great plains, and the 

 war upon the bison began. All the buffalo 

 that the settlers killed and all that the 

 Indians could take with their primitive 

 means, however, were not as one grain of 

 sand from the seashore, so vast was the herd. 

 An Indian, in describing to a white trapper 

 the prevalence of bison in a certain part of 



