The American Wilderness. n 



coast was already fairly well settled, and there were a few 

 mining camps in the Rockies ; but most of this Rocky 

 Mountains region, and the entire stretch of plains country 

 proper, the vast belt of level or rolling grass land lying 

 between the Rio Grande and the Saskatchewan, still re- 

 mained primeval wilderness, inhabited only by roving 

 hunters and formidable tribes of Indian nomads, and by 

 the huge herds of game on which they preyed. Beaver 

 swarmed in the streams and yielded a rich harvest to the 

 trapper ; but trapping was no longer the mainstay of the 

 adventurous plainsmen. Foremost among the beasts of 

 the chase, on account of its numbers, its size, and its 

 economic importance, was the bison or American buffalo . 

 its innumerable multitudes darkened the limitless prairies. 

 As the transcontinental railroads were pushed towards 

 completion, and the tide of settlement rolled onwards with 

 ever increasing rapidity, buffalo robes became of great 

 value. The hunters forthwith turned their attention 

 mainly to the chase of the great clumsy beasts, slaughter- 

 ing them by hundreds of thousands for their hides ; some- 

 times killing them on horseback, but more often on foot, 

 by still-hunting, with the heavy long-range Sharp's rifle. 

 Throughout the fifteen years during which this slaughter 

 lasted, a succession of desperate wars was waged with 

 the banded tribes of the Horse Indians. All the time, 

 in unending succession, long trains of big white-topped 

 wagons crept slowly westward across the prairies, marking 

 the steady oncoming of the frontier settlers. 



By the close of 1883 the last buffalo herd was de- 

 stroyed. The beaver were trapped out of all the streams, 



