The Last of the Buffalo 



those old days can credit the stories told 

 about them. The trains of the Kansas 

 Pacific Railroad used frequently to be de- 

 tained by herds which were crossing the 

 tracks in front of the engines; and in 1 870, 

 trains on which I was travelling were 

 twice so held, in one case for three hours. 

 When railroad travel first began on this 

 road, the engineers tried the experiment 

 of running through these passing herds ; 

 but after their engines had been thrown 

 from the tracks they learned wisdom, and 

 gave the buffalo the right of way. Two 

 or three years later, in the country be- 

 tween the Platte and Republican Rivers, I 

 saw a closely massed herd of buffalo so 

 vast that I dare not hazard a guess as to 

 its numbers ; and in later years I travelled 

 for weeks at a time, in northern Montana, 

 without ever being out of sight of buffalo. 

 These were not in close herds, except now 

 and then when alarmed and running, but 

 were usually scattered about, feeding, or 

 lying down on the prairie at a little dis- 

 tance from one another, much as domestic 

 cattle distribute themselves in a pasture or 

 on the range. As far as we could see on 

 every side of the line of march, and ahead, 

 the hillsides were dotted with dark forms ; 

 and the field-glass revealed yet others on 



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