40 HUNTING SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



Canada and the United States, where they are much used 

 as a defence from the extreme winter cold of those coun- 

 tries. This is, in addition to any number that may be 

 killed to provide the same covering for the Indians them- 

 selves, who are as fond of it as their white neighbors are. 

 The buffalo is to them great gain ; they eat him, wear 

 him, and trade him away for the various articles of use 

 and luxury which their uncivilized wandering life fails to 

 provide for them, but the taste for which it by no means 

 extinguishes. 



A traveller camping out in the prairies, heard one 

 night a noise like distant thunder, but so prolonged that 

 he was certain it could not be that. Puzzled to account 

 for it, as it came nearer and nearer, he listened with his 

 ear close to the ground, and at length became aware that 

 it was the heavy tread of a herd of buffaloes on one of 

 their usual migrations on the plains ; and a momentary 

 gleam of moonlight showed him the prairie, black over 

 with thousands upon thousands of these huge beasts. 

 IIow to escape their headlong rush became a subject of 

 no little anxiety, as camp and all, placed in their imme- 

 diate track, was in danger of being borne away by the 

 torrent. Hastening to his comrades, he roused them up ; 

 and by dint of repeated volleys from their muskets, aided 

 by the united screeches and yells of the whole party, 

 they succeeded in frightening the monsters into a different 

 path to that which led directly over their encampment, 

 and thus escaped the chance of being crushed to death. 

 The herd, under this double salute, divided into two; 

 one-half thundering off to the plains, while the other 

 tramped through the adjacent river, where their splash* 



