IN THE FAR WEST. 179 



the use of riHes would make them travel perhaps ten or 

 twenty miles before tliey could find a herd, and it would then 

 be so timid that to approach it might prove a difficult matter, 

 and would certainly require great caution and the most careful 

 stalking-. Another reason is, that every man can tell what 

 meat belongs to him by the private mark on his arrows, so all 

 that the squaws have to do is to search for the arrows of their 

 husbands, and commence an immediate dissection of the car- 

 casses in which they are planted. If a precipice is convenient 

 the red men avoid all trouble by driving the herds towards it, 

 and into this they tumble headlong, for they move at such a 

 velocity, and are so crowded together, that the rear pushes the 

 front downwards, and all follow in the ir.ost stupid manner, 

 though they may see the danger before them. Many thousands 

 are destroyed in this way, and many more by being lost in 

 quicksands or swallowed up in the ice and turbulent currents 

 of large rivers, so that fate seems to aim at their destruction. 



One of the meanest devices ever instituted by man for their 

 destruction is that practised by some persons south of the 

 Platte River, in Nebraska. Streams being exceedingly scarce 

 there, the poor creatures have to travel many miles sometimes 

 to obtain water, and when they reach it they are so desperate 

 from thirst that nothing except death can prevent them from 

 having it. Hunters knowing this, post themselves along the 

 streams and kill them as they come to drink, but for fear their 

 work by day should not prove effective enough, they build 

 fires at night, and by this means keep the dying creatures 

 away from the water for three or four days at a time. AVhen, 

 however, they can stand the pangs of thirst no longer, they 

 rush for the precious fluid, preferring death to unbearable 

 misery, and many sink, to rise no more, under the leaden hail 

 of numerous rifles. Herd after herd is frequently slaughtered 

 in this barbarous manner, until scarcely any remain in a large 

 tract of country. The result is, that few, comparatively 

 speaking, are now found there, though they could be counted 

 by the thousand a few years ago. 



I have had some exciting and pleasant runs after the buffalo 

 on horseback, and I have stalked it on a few occasions, but the 



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