212 The King of the Thundering Herd 



come and go, and there were frisky young 

 bullocks just learning to fight. There were 

 old cows and young heifers, calves and 

 yearlings, all sleek with the good feeding 

 in this land of plenty. 



As a general thing, they were peaceable 

 enough among themselves, and until the 

 robe-hunters came, they really had every- 

 thing their own way on the plains. True, 

 the gray pack always scouted upon their 

 flanks to pick up sick stragglers, or those 

 that had been wounded, but this merely 

 served to make the herd more hardy, for it 

 weeded out the weak. It was the law of 

 the survival of the fittest. 



The Indians slaughtered a few thousand 

 or perhaps tens of thousands of head each 

 year, but that was not a drop in the waters 

 of the Missouri compared with their great 

 number. 



Starvation and cold rarely thinned their 

 numbers, for they were very hardy. Their 



