The King of the Plains 19 



the vast American desert, the event sounded 

 the knell of the bison. The mighty herd 

 that had hitherto surged northward and 

 southward, with the change of season, was 

 then cut asunder, and was never again 

 united. 



Occasionally trains were held up on the 

 Union Pacific for half a day while a herd 

 of comparatively few numbers crossed the 

 tracks, but these were small bands, when 

 compared with the whole mighty phalanx, 

 and their migrations were merely tem- 

 porary. 



Before the coming of the railroad there 

 had been no object in killing large numbers 

 of buffalo. A man could pack out only 

 half a dozen, or at most a dozen skins upon 

 a pony, and as the price was only a dollar 

 a skin, it did not pay ; but when the rail- 

 road solved the transportation difficulties y 

 and the companies still paid a dollar per 

 robe, it was different. A lazy man who 



