144 The King of the Thundering Herd 



signs began to multiply. The northern 

 herd had not yet felt the inroads of the 

 robe-hunters, although in the four years 

 since the Andersons had come West, the 

 southern herd, numbering hundreds of 

 millions of head, had nearly disappeared. 



Man was not alarmingly destructive to 

 the buffalo beyond the distance at which he 

 could readily pack his hides into market, so 

 buffalo were still found in great numbers a 

 hundred miles north of the Union Pacific 

 road. Gradually, however, as the steam- 

 boats plying upon the Missouri River, to 

 accommodate the settlements that sprang up 

 like mushrooms in a single night upon its 

 banks, grew more numerous, the herds 

 were forced farther north and northwest, 

 until they finally took refuge in the Dako- 

 tas and Montana. 



Two weeks of traveling, in the manner 

 already described, carried our young ex- 

 plorer well into the territory of Dakota, 



