390 WILD ANIMALS. 



given them, and it was soon consumed in a carouse that followed. 

 Not a skin, or a pound of meat, except the tongues, for the Indianr 

 camp was well-stocked, was brought in as the result of this hunt. 

 This is only one instance of hundreds that were of monthly occur- 

 rence, wherein such profligate waste was encouraged by the white 

 men, who now when too late see the mistake they have made. 



The railroads opening up fresh country so rapidly have also been 

 conducive to the slaughter of the buffaloes. The Boston Serald 

 lately stated that a curious feature of a once important branch of 

 trade in St. Paul, Minnesota, is the fact that the entire " catch " 

 of buffalo robes in 1884 was but four, while in 1883 the " catch " 

 was 10,000. In 1881, the year after the Northern Pacific was 

 open through to the Little Missouri, the north-western traders got 

 in over 100,000 robes. The procuring of so large a number was 

 owing to the railway having been utilized by the hide-hunters, and 

 the buffaloes happened to be south of the line, within reaching ■ 

 distance of the Missouri and transportation. No wonder there 

 are no more buffaloes, the marvel is the herds stood the slaughter 

 as long as they did before being exterminated. 



Every way in which it was possible to get a shot at the animal 

 was taken advantage of. The writer of an article in Harper's 

 Magazine for 1869, on the buffalo range, observes : "A few months 

 since passengers on the way to Denver and Salt Lake, by the Smoky 

 Hill route, had frequent opportunities of seeing herds of buffalo 

 from the cars of the Union Pacific Eailroa'd, and on several 

 occasions the buffalo were sufficiently close to the trains to be 

 killed by shots from the car windows and platforms ; the engineer 

 being accommodating enough to slow the locomotive sufficiently 

 to keep pace with the buffalo, which were seemingly engagqd in 

 a race with the iron horse. When buffalo were killed the train 

 was stopped, the game secured being granted a free ride in the 

 baggage-car. It would seem to be hardly possible to imagine a 

 more novel sight than a small band of buffalo galloping along 

 within a few hundred feet of a railroad train in rapid motion, 

 while the passengers are engaged in shooting from every available 

 window, with rifles, carbines, and revolvers. An American scene 

 certainly ! " 



