American Big-Game Hunting 



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 between the Platte and Republican 

 rivers, I saw a closely massed herd of buffalo 

 so vast that I dared not hazard a guess as 

 to its numbers ; and in later years I have 

 traveled, for weeks at a time, in northern 

 Montana without ever beinof out of sio^ht of 

 buffalo. These were not in close herds, ex- 

 cept now and then when alarmed and running, 

 but were usually scattered about, feeding or 

 lying down on the prairie at a little distance 

 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 stretched out on 

 every side, in one continuous host, to the most 

 distant hills. Thus was gained a more just 

 notion of their numbers than could be had in 

 any other way, for the sight of this limitless 



1 60 



