THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 521 



wherein one hunter would openly kill five thousand buffaloes and mar- 

 ket perhaps two thousand hides, could easily have been stopped forever. 

 Buffalo hides could not have been dealt in clandestinely, for many 

 reasons, and had there been no sale for ill-gotten spoils the still-hunter 

 would have gathered no spoils to sell. It was an undertaking of con- 

 siderable magnitude, and involving a cash outlay of several hundred 

 dollars to make up an "outfit" of wagons, horses, arms and ammuni- 

 tion, food, etc., for a trip to "the range" after buffaloes. It was these 

 wholesale hunters, both in the North and the South, who exterminated 

 the species, and to say that all such undertakings could not have been 

 effectually prevented by law is to accuse our law-makers and law-offi- 

 cers of imbecility to a degree hitherto unknown. There is nowhere in 

 this country, nor in any of the waters adjacent to it, a living species of 

 any kind which the United States Government can not fully and per- 

 petually protect from destruction by human agencies if it chooses to do 

 so. The destruction of the buffalo was a loss of wealth perhaps twenty 

 times greater than the sum it would have cost to conserve it, and this 

 stupendous waste of valuable food and other products was committed 

 by one class of the American people and permitted by another with a 

 prodigality and wastefulness which even in the lowest savages would 

 be inexcusable. 



VI. Completeness of the Extermination. 



(May 1, 1889.) 



Although the existence of a few widely-scattered individuals enables 

 us to say that the bison is not yet absolutely extinct in a wild state, 

 there is no reason to hope that a single wild and unprotected individual 

 will remain alive ten years hence. The nearer the species approaches 

 to complete extermination, the more eagerly are the wretched fugitives 

 pursued to the death whenever found. Western hunters are striving 

 for the honor (?) of killing the last buffalo, which, it is to be noted, has 

 already been slain about a score of times by that number of hunters. 



The buffaloes still alive in a wild state are so very few, and have been 

 so carefully " marked down" by hunters, it is possible to make a very 

 close estimate of the total number remaining. In this enumeration the 

 small herd in the Yellowstone National Park is classed with other herds 

 in captivity and under protection, for the reason that, had it not been 

 for the protection afforded by the law and the officers of the Park, not 

 one of these buffaloes would be living to-day. Were the restrictions of 

 the law removed now, every one of those animals would be killed within 

 three months. Their heads alone are worth from $25 to $50 each to 

 taxidermists, and for this reasou every buffalo is a prize worth the 

 hunter's winning. Had it not been for stringent laws, and a rigid en- 

 forcement of them by Captain Harris, the last of the Park buffaloes 

 would have been shot years ago by Vic. Smith, the Eea Brothers, and 



