The Last Piskun 267 



enough, or a boulder high enough for the 

 purpose could be found. 



But even there, in this comparatively wild 

 country, the hunted bison could not rest 

 secure for long. The white man had learned 

 that these same plains would raise wheat. 

 The land was new and full of the virtue of 

 virgin soil, and the best of wheat could be 

 had merely for the sowing and reaping. So 

 they swarmed across the Canadian plains 

 and took up homesteads, just as they had 

 done in the central portion of the United 

 States a generation before. 



With the coming of the white man, the 

 destruction of the bison again began. It 

 was not so much of a slaughter as it had been 

 in the robe-hunting days, but the herds were 

 now only as one to ten thousand compared 

 with what they had been in the old days, 

 so the inroads of the Canadian farmers and 

 hunters were too much for them, and they 

 again had to move on. 



