THE BISON. 385 



wislies. The result is, tliat in a run of perhaps twenty miles, a 

 thousand or two animals may be lying on the ground, and in some 

 instances double that number. When the recall is sounded, the 

 horsemen return and devote their attention to the wounded, and 

 soon put thepa out of their misery. The carts follow the hunters 

 and gather up the meat, and the greater portion of that is, in a 

 few hours, ready to be placed on the drying stages, while the hides 

 are being prepared for drying. When the expedition returns after 

 the grand hunt, which sometimes lasts for weeks, its members have 

 meat enough to feed them for several months, and many a buffalo robe 

 with which to provide clothing and luxuries for their families." 



The slaughtering of the buffalo was, however, accomplished 

 differently by different tribes. The Middle Plains Indians were to 

 some extent careful of the buffaloes, and did nothing that would 

 tend to drive them from their district. The Dacotas were 

 quite the reverse, bfeing exceptionally improvident in this respect. 

 The Cheyennes and Arrapahoes employed the "surround" in their 

 hunts, while the Pawnees used to kill the beasts by driving the 

 herds over precipices, and in this way slaughtered immense 

 numbers. The Kiowas and Commanches were reported as 

 invaria,bly using the lance as their hunting- weapon, and it was 

 none the less deadly because silent. 



The early missionaries of the Jesuits, and the enterprising 

 French voyageurs, who were among the first white men to penetrate 

 into the valley of the Mississippi, gazed with wonder on the stupen- 

 dous herds of buffaloes that they found grazing on the prairies of 

 Illinois and bordering states. The animals appeared to be in 

 undisturbed possession of the whole country. Thousands upon 

 thousands were constantly before the travellers. These herds, in 

 fact, had then no enemy against whom they could not successfully 

 contend" except the Indian hunters, who at certain seasons came 

 out in b'ands against them, but whose greatest efforts could only 

 make such a slight, temporary diminution in their numbers, that 

 it would be more than compensated for by the natural increase of 

 the year. Occasionally also, a prairie fire might drive them in 

 panic-stricken flight from some chosen plain, but otherwise they 

 were unmolested from one year's end to another. This was at 



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