THE AMERICAN BISONS. 69 



given promise of improved breeds, and an attempt to propagate them in 

 confinement by an enterprising stock-raiser, either as pure stock or as a mixed 

 race, would undoubtedly prove remunerative. In the vicinity of tbe present 

 range of the buffalo, tame individuals are frequently met with, which are 

 reared and kept simply as pets or objects of curiosity, just as occasional 

 specimens of the deer, elk, or pronghorn are kept. A young buffalo that 

 was owned by the sutler at Fort Hays in 1871, then about two years old, 

 proved to be a most eccentric and amusing beast. Through the attentions of 

 visitors he acquired, among his other accomplishments, a great fondness for 

 beer, of which he would sometimes partake to excess, when he would 

 occasionally perform rather strange antics. He was usually inoffensive 

 in his manners, though latterly his behavior to strangers was rather too 

 familiar to be always agreeable, and gradually he became somewhat irritable 

 in consequence of constant teasing. But on these occasions of inebriety he 

 sometimes took it into his head to clear the so-called " officers' room " at the 

 sutler's, to which he was often admitted, of its occupants. On one of these 

 occasions he is reported to have mounted a billiard-table, from which he was 

 not easily dislodged ; at another time he is said to have ascended the stairs 

 leading to the second story, and was with great difficulty induced to descend 

 again. His excesses, lack of proper care, and unnatural diet at length 

 seemed to seriously impair his health, as he soon grew thin, and did not long 

 survive. 



The herds of cattle that are driven from Texas to Wyoming and other 

 Northern territories are sometimes accompanied by one or two young tamed 

 buffaloes. Two two-year-old buffaloes thus reached Percy, Carbon County, 

 Wyoming, in December, 1871, en route for Utah. One of them, however, 

 was killed by some hunters near Percy, who claimed to have mistaken it for 

 a wild animal, — a fate which not unfrequently befalls the tamed buffaloes 

 of the frontier. The other was shipped westward by rail with the rest of 

 the herd. These individuals mixed as freely with the domestic cattle as any 

 other members of the herd, and were as easily managed, and had no greater 

 fear of man than the others. 



The very young buffalo calf, when separated from its mother, often evinces 

 the utmost stupidity and lack of discernment ; sometimes thrusting its nose 

 into a tuft of herbage, it seems to imagine itself wholly hidden from view, and, 

 in its fancied security, will stand and allow itself to be captured. A horse 

 seems to possess for it a strange fascination, and it is very apt, when one is 



