The Last of the Buffalo 



often told, that I may be spared the sick- 

 ening details of the butchery which was 

 carried on from the Mexican to the Brit- 

 ish boundary line in the struggle to obtain 

 a few dollars by a most ignoble means. 

 As soon as railroads penetrated the buffalo 

 country, a market was opened for their 

 hides. Men too lazy to work were not 

 too lazy to hunt ; and a good hunter could 

 kill in the early days from thirty to sev- 

 enty-five buffalo a day, the hides of which 

 were worth from $1.50 to $4 each. This 

 seemed an easy way to make money, and 

 the market for hides was unlimited. Up 

 to this time the trade in robes had been 

 mainly confined to those dressed by the 

 Indians, and these were for the most part 

 taken from cows. The coming of the 

 railroad made hides of all sorts marketable, 

 and even those taken from naked old bulls 

 found a sale at some price. The butchery 

 of buffalo was now something stupendous. 

 Thousands of hunters followed millions of 

 buffalo, and destroyed them wherever found 

 and at all seasons of the year. They pur- 

 sued them during the day, and at night 

 camped at the watering places, and built 

 lines of fires along the streams, to drive the 

 buffalo back so that they could not drink. 

 It took less than six years to destroy all the 



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