380 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
Colonel Bedson’s herd, taken by Lady Alice Stanley, and by 
a photographer at Winnipeg, Manitoba. 
An idea of the size of a buffalo bull may be conveyed by 
the fact that, in 1889, one of the bulls in Colonel Bedson’s herd 
was estimated at 2,000 lbs., and a much smaller beast, a half- 
bred bull, was killed, which dressed without the head 1,100 lbs. 
This was a four-year-old, by a buffalo bull out of a Durham cow, 
P.S.—Since writing the above, I have spent a season with 
an old-time buffalo hunter, who confirmed all the statements 
made to me by others ; and added that, as an instance of the 
numbers killed by individuals, he himself accounted for 3,500 
head in four years, whilst a friend of his, A. C. Myers, killed 
4,200 buffaloes in the Pan Handle Country, in Texas, in one 
year, ‘about the time Hayes was President.’ 
My ald friend S. W. explained to me why men used such 
a gigantic weapon as the ‘old reliable’ Sharp, which used to weigh 
16 lbs. and upwards, although the bullet was but a small one. 
In buffalo shooting, he said, you had often to fire a deuce of 
a lot of shots one after another ; the weather was hotter than” 
‘the hottest part of the hot place,’ and as you were shooting at — 
long ranges, if the barrel got hot, a sort of mist would get be- — 
tween your eyeand the sights, which helpedthe buffalo somewhat. _ 
Besides, where shooting was your trade, you didn’t want to get — 
your shoulder ‘kicked’ at every shot ; and as for the weight 
of your rifle, that didn’t matter to you, for your pony packed it. — 
‘A pile of buffalo bones’ 
