510 l.EPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887, 



by the three rivers, Missouri, Musselshell, and Yellowstone, it contained, 

 to the best of his knowledge and belief, two hundred and fifty thousand 

 buffaloes. Unquestionably that region yielded an immense number of 

 buffalo robes, and since the slaughter thousands of tons of bones have 

 been gathered up there. Another favorite locality was the country 

 lying between the Powder River and the Little Missouri, particularly 

 the valleys of Beaver and O'Fallon Creeks. Thither went scores of 

 "outfits" and hundreds of hunters and skinners "from the Northern Pa- 

 cific Railway towns from Miles City to Glendive. The hunters from the 

 towns between Glendive and Bismarck mostly went south to Cedar 

 Creek and the Grand and Moreau Rivers. But this territory was also 

 the hunting ground of the Sioux Indians from the great reservation 

 farther south. 



Thousands upon thousands of buffaloes were killed on the Milk and 

 Marias Rivers, in the Judith Basin, and in northern Wyoming. 



The method of slaughter has already been fully described under the 

 head of " the still-hunt," and need not be recapitulated. It is some grati- 

 fication to know that the shocking and criminal wastefulness which was 

 so marked a feature of the southern butchery was almost wholly un- 

 known in the north. Robes were worth from $1.50 to $3.50, according 

 to size and quality, and were removed and preserved with great care. 

 Every one hundred robes marketed represented not more than one 

 hundred and ten dead buffaloes, aud even this small percentage of loss 

 was due to the escape of wounded animals which afterward died and 

 were devoured by the wolves. After the skin was taken off the hunter 

 or skinner stretched it carefully upon the ground, inside uppermost, 

 cut his initials in the adherent subcutaneous muscle, and left it until 

 the season for hauling in the robes, which was always done in the early 

 spring, immediately following the hunt. 



As was the case in the south, it was the ability of a single hunter to 

 destroy an entire bunch of buffalo in a single day that completely anni- 

 hilated the remaining thousands of the northern herd before the people 

 of the United States even learned what was going on. For example, 

 one hunter of my acquaintance, Vic. Smith, the most famous hunter in 

 Montana, killed one hundred and seven buffaloes in one " stand," in 

 about one hour's time, aud without shifting his point of attack. This 

 occurred in the Red Water country, about 100 miles northeast of Miles 

 City, in the winter of 1881-'82. During the same season another hunter, 

 named "Doc." Aughl, killed eighty-five buffaloes at one "stand," and 

 John Edwards killed seventy-five. The total number that Smith claims 

 to have killed that season is " about five thousand." Where buffaloes 

 were at all plentiful, every man who called himself a hunter was ex- 

 pected to kill between one and two thousand during the hunting season — 

 from November to February — and when the buffaloes were to be found 

 it was a comparatively easy thing to do. 



During the year 1882 the thousands of bison that still remained alive 



