Boots and Saddles 235 



sued until there only remained a few scat- 

 tered small herds of a few hundred head 

 each in Montana. Then something befell 

 that sounded the death- knell of what 

 few head there were left in the United 

 States. 



It was all because the Great White Father 

 at Washington was angry at the red man, 

 whom the whites had hunted from reserva- 

 tion to reservation almost as persistently as 

 they had the buffalo. The White Father's 

 soldiers had been killed in a battle called 

 the Little Big-horn, and he could not wreak 

 his vengeance upon the Indian, because he 

 ran so fast, and would not stay still to be 

 thrashed, so the White Father determined 

 to punish the Indian by cutting off his 

 supply of meat. If he could not subdue 

 him in any other way, he could starve him. 



It was in June of 1876 that a jaded 

 trooper had risen in his stirrups at four in 

 the morning, after an all night's ride and 



