130 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



desperately hard for every pound of flesh or hide he 

 captured. 



"Then the mind of man l)egan to develop and aid 

 him. The Indian, knowing the Buffalo's habit of 

 stampeding from fright, laid stones, sticks, and brush on 

 either side of some open space to make a sort of drive- 

 way, wide apart at first, but graduall}' narrowing until 

 it ended either in a sort of pen or at the edge of a preci- 

 pice. 



" After a herd was located, and this in itself was 

 not always easy, a disturbance was made to start it run- 

 ning in the right direction. Perhaps a man went out 

 and waved his arms, retreating down the driveway as 

 the first of the herd came near to look at him. Tlie 

 curious animal would quicken liis j^ace, and as soon as 

 he was fairly started the Indian slipped behind the bar- 

 ricade and joined with his comrades in shouting to 

 frighten tlie herd that were now following their leader 

 at full gallop. 



" On the mad throng rushed, crowding and trampling 

 each other as the track narrowed, until, when they 

 arrived in the pen, they were giving each other mortal 

 wounds, the calves tossed on the horns of the old bulls 

 and the ^\■eaker trampled to death. Then, amid great 

 personal danger, the Indians rushed in and killed those 

 not already wounded, with stone axes, or in later days 

 shot them with their flint arrows. You can see that it 

 must have taken a strong arm to send a clumsy stone 

 arrow through the thick Buffalo hide. If the animals 

 were driven over a cliff and fell crippled at the bottom, 

 the killing took place there in the same manner as in 

 the pen. After the slaughter, the men discussed various 



