376 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



IV. BISON OR BUFFALO (Bison americanus} 



In writing of big game in North America, it is impossible 

 to write for more than the immediate present. That which 

 was ten years ago has already ceased to be, and it is probable 

 that the conditions, both of game and country, will change 

 almost as much in the coming decade as they have done in 

 that which has just passed. 



Ten years ago, as I travelled along the Northern Pacific 

 Railway line, the skin-hunters were at work in the neighbour- 

 hood of Glendive and Little Missouri, and I had an opportunity 

 of killing my buffalo like my predecessors. Unfortunately for 

 me, I agreed with Colonel Dodge's plainsmen in ' scarcely 

 considering the buffalo game.' Now the herds are gone, and 

 neither I nor any other man will see the prairies again ' all one 

 vast robe.' All that remains of the vast herds which used to 

 roam ' over the whole of the Eastern United States to the 

 Atlantic Ocean, and southward into Florida,' are two or three 

 half-domesticated herds (one which was Colonel Bedson's and 

 one in the Kootenay country among the Flat-head Indians), 

 and a small band of wild beasts, protected by the United 

 States, in the Yellowstone Park. 'Forest and Stream,' 

 January 29, 1892, puts this last herd at about 400 head, with 

 an increase of 100 head per annum. West of Winnipeg the 

 buffalo paths are still visible, worn deep in the grey prairies by 

 millions of passing feet ; but the herds have gone, and the men 

 and beasts who lived upon them. All that is left are a few 

 piles of bleaching bones and a few weather-worn skulls, and 

 even these have almost all been gathered and turned into 

 dol'ars by the manure manufacturer and the trophy- monger. 

 In this practical money-grubbing age it does not do to lament 

 the good old days, unless you want to be laughed at ; but 

 it is hard, nevertheless, to look on the ocean of grassland 

 when the spring flowers are coming, and not regret the great 

 waves of animal life which used to sweep over it. Such 



