462 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



LJtjxt 10, 1884. 



A DEPARTED RACE. 

 T>LE NT Y of men are yet living who remember -when 

 -*- buffaloes in countless herds covered all of the vast 

 plains between the Missouri River and the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, from the borders of Mexico to the Arctic regions. It 

 is not very long since. Only about fifty years ago their 

 slaughter, to supply the demands of commerce, began, and 

 then it "was in a small way. The only article then sought 

 was their skins, for conversion into robes. The trade was 

 at first only with the Indians, and along the Missouri River 

 and its tributaries. The Indian, as a rule, is not wasteful nor 

 improvident in the destruction of game. He realizes that it 

 is the mainstay of his life, and if he wastes this year it may 

 cause him to suffer from hunger next year; hence he kills 

 to provide meat for the present ; and preserves for the future. 

 The skins from animals so slain, after sufficing for his own 

 wants, find their way to the trader, and thence into the 

 channels of commerce. Thus began the trade in buffalo 

 skins. As the white man became acquainted with the coun- 

 try he saw profit in it, and about 1830 traders began to reach 

 out into the buffalo country, accompanied by professional 

 white hunters, who made a life business of slaughter. How- 

 ever, they were not very destructive, mainly because of their 

 indolence, and partially, perhaps, for the reason that their 

 arms were very imperfect as compared with those of the 

 present day. 



First, trading posts were established along the eastern edge 

 of the buffalo range, upon the Missouri River and its larger 

 tributaries. Then the traders crossed the plains and located 

 a similar chain of posts, or forts, along the western edge of 

 the range. These latter were close up to the foot of the 

 great mountain range and at that time, the old employes 

 tell, the great tide of buffalo migration, north and south, 

 with the changing seasons, surged up against the foothills, 

 and diverging columns turned up the larger streams into the 

 mouutains and over the passes above the limit of timber 

 growth into the parks and valleys, and even to the sage 

 plains of our present Utah, Nevada and Idaho. Even then 

 the white man's methods in a few years had a marked effect 

 upon the vast herds. The great column narrowed from the 

 sides. The flanking columns were cut off from the mountain 

 passes. The buffalo became rare west of the mountains. The 

 trading posts moved westward from the Missouri and eastward 

 from the mountains. At first the change was slow, then it in- 

 creased year by year and the dates of the abandonment of 

 old forts and the occupation of new ones, twenty-five or fifty 

 miles further out upon the plains, would show exactly the 

 ratio of decrease in the millions of wild cattle that formerly 

 roamed there. So the destruction went steadily on, but, as 

 it now appears, slowly, until twenty-five years ago, when 

 civilization leaped in one stride from the Missouri River to 

 the Rocky Mountains. Then the tide of travel across the 

 plains by many routes became great and constant. For 

 hundreds of miles the roads led through pastures yet plenti- 

 fully stocked with buffalo. The writer has within twenty 

 years traveled for six days in succession upon a stage coach 

 without being at any time in daylight out of sight of herds 

 of buffalo. Of course the slaughter increased with the influx 

 of the white man. They were killed for meat, and when 

 that was not wanted they were killed for sport— mere wan- 

 ton destructiveness, or to brag about. In this epoch, if such 

 the period may be styled, commerce and the world reaped 

 no benefit from the slaughter, except in the little bit of the 

 meat that was eaten by the butchers and their comrades. 

 The skins were not saved. No meat was sent to market. 



Then came the railroads; two lines, the "Union Pacific and 

 Kansas Pacific, that penetrated the heart of the buffalo 

 country in 1868 and traversed the entire breadth of it before 

 midsummer of 1870. With them, in the hands of the masses, 

 came also the deadly repeating and breechloading rifles, 

 with which any pot-hunter could " pump " lead into a five 

 hundred acre herd of buffalo with deadly effect, whether he 

 could ever find the carcasses or not. That made no dif- 

 ference. If he wanted one animal he might just as well kill 

 ten, or if he wanted ten it would take but little longer to 

 shoot fifty, and in either case he could then pick out the 

 best— provided the best did not go too far away to die. 

 "With the advent of the railways the buffalo killing was for 

 a time all done "for meat." Hundreds and hundreds of 

 men went regularly into the slaughter. The only meat they 

 wanted was hams and tongues. The rest was left to rot. 

 Eveu the hams were taken only from the best 

 animals, judged by inspection after death, deter- 

 mined by a kind of coronor's inquest. Buffalo hams 

 became one of the largest freight items on the railways. 

 Car loads and train loads went to Eastern markets. Hun- 

 dreds of tons rotted at the stations for want of shipping 

 facilities, other hundreds or thousands of tons rotted before 

 it could be transported from where killed to the railways. 



People got tired of "high" buffalo meat, and the next craze 

 was for the skins. While they were being killed for the 

 meat the skins were not saved. The skin of the hams went 

 with them to market; the balance rotted with the meat. 

 Now the meat hunters all went to killing for skins. A 

 "shooter" would employ five, six or seven "skinners;" 

 establish his camp in the buffalo range and go to work to 

 keep his men busy. Thanks to breechloaders and repeaters 

 he could "down" from seventy-five to one hundred buffalo 

 per day on an average. Nothing was saved but the skin, 

 and this was worth on "the range" seventy-five cents or one 



dollar. This was the campaign that exterminated the 

 buffalo upon the middle plains. 



For two or three years after the opening of the railways 

 named, a train seldom crossed the plains without passing in 

 sight of buffalo, and it was not an uncommon thing for a 

 train to have to wait for a moving herd to cross the track. 

 Now buffalo are never seen from the trains, nor have they 

 been for eight or ten years past. But there remained one 

 more harvest to be gathered from the departed native life 

 and grandeur of the great plains; a poor, pitiful, post-mor- 

 tem harvest of stinking bones. After they had surfeited the 

 East with odorous hams and glutted the markets of the 

 world with "robes" killed in season and out of season, these 

 gallant hunters turned scavengers and gathered the rotting 

 bones and blistering horns of the countless dead. Bailway 

 trains that had in former years groaned under loads of meat 

 and bales of hides were now loaded down with bones des- 

 tined for Eastern manufactories of various kinds. The whole 

 country was gleaned. 



At length the work was done. Destruction was complete. 

 N o sign was left to show that a buffalo had ever existed in 

 the country, and the vandals who had hounded them to their 

 death and their bones to the sugar refinery, drifted off north- 

 ward or southward to follow up the remnants of herds, to 

 gather the bones along other railways, or to repeat the 

 slaughter upon the noble elk that so recently peopled all the 

 valleys and parks of the mountains. Such newspaper para- 

 graphs as the following show their tracks: 



"It is said in St, Paul that hundreds of teams are now engaged near 

 Bismarck in gathering buffalo bones, for which the sum of $6 a ton 

 is paid by persons who send them to Philadelphia for grinding into 

 fertilizing powders." 



•'The buffalo herds of Texas have been reduced to one small herd 

 now feeding on the Pecos River, but this is fast being reduced and its 

 days are numbered. This is a remnant of what was known a few 

 years ago as the "great Southern herd." 



And yet the country is full of sportsmen who clamor for 

 more deadly repeating rifles. 



r {ht fyavkn\mi ^auri^t 



UNCLE LISHA'S SHOP. 



A SOFT snow having fallen, not too deep for the com- 

 fortable traveling of those so used to such footing as 

 are the hill folks of Northern New England, almost all of 

 Lisha's friends who were wont to gather in his shop had 

 gone fox hunting. 



Many times that day Lisha had stood in the doorway to 

 listen to the voices of the hounds, now wafted softer to his 

 ears on the heavy air from the snow-muffled woods than in 

 the brighter days of October, when each hound's note was 

 answered by a dozen echoes, all so sharp and clear that one 

 could hardly tell the real voice from the counterfeit. And once 

 when the music tended toward a runway two furlongs down 

 the road, where the points of two ledges flanked the highway 

 on either side, the old man had taken down his long gun and 

 bare-headed, in his shirt-sleeves, and with his apron flopping 

 about his legs, waddled like a hurried duck half way to 

 the crossing place. But the fox then changed his course 

 and drew the clamor tapering into silence beyond the crest 

 of a great ridge, and Lisha, after some shivering waiting 

 had cooled his ardor, went back to his bench. He was im- 

 patient for evening to come that he might hear how it had 

 fared with the hunters, but they were too leg-weary that 

 night to leave their own firesides, even for the pleasure of 

 "swapping lies" and comparing notes concerning the day's 

 events. The next night, however, brought most of them to 

 the accustomed meeting place, ready to talk or listen. Lisha 

 missed the blonde-bearded face and tall gaunt form of Sam 

 Lovel, the mightiest hunter of them all. 



" Where's Samwill ?" he roared as if he was hailing the 

 mountains. "Them 'ere long laegs o' his'n hain't gin aout, 

 hev they?" 



"I sh'd think not," Joe Hill answered, " he went tram- 

 poosin' off on 't the North Hill airly this mornin' arter a fox. 

 We beam the ole dawg a tootin' on it to him yit as we come 

 along. 'F Sam c'n git him off he '11 be comin' 'long this way 

 hum to rights." 



" What a darned critter!" said Lisha, his tone expressing 

 more approval than his words, "up an' at it, every day an' 

 all day!" 



" Samwell," said Solon Brigs, " is a reg'lar Ramrod, so to 

 speak; a mighty hunter afore the Lord. He '11 f oiler a fox 

 from Daniel to Bashaby afore he '11 delinquish the pursooth, 

 or less the nocturnity of night comes on to him, which that 

 periodical of natur has now arriven an' come, an' therefore 

 he will most proberble do likewise soon." 



The sounds of heavy boots being rid of snow by stamping 

 and scraping on the doorstep and the impatient whine of a 

 dog were heard, and the predictions of Joe and the wise 

 Solon were speedily fulfilled by the entrance of Sam and his 

 gaunt sad-faced hound, with a whiff of chill outer air, as if 

 the hunter had brought down a bagful of the North Hill's 

 breezy atmosphere to sweeten the shop with. As Lisha 

 shouted his welcome the eyes of every one sought first the 

 capacious pockets of Sam's frock, and saw hanging out of 

 one the flluffy brush of a fine fox. 



"Wal, Sam, ye got him, hey?" 



"Got one on 'em," he said, in a tone that implied no great 

 satisfaction with his luck, "Started two more, but one on 

 'em holed in half an hour, an' t'other one dodged me till it 

 got so dark I couldn't see to shoot, 'n' so I called old Drive 

 off an' come along." 



Drive, who had stretched his weary length by the stove, 

 raised his head and cast a sorrowful look on his master. 



"Wal, dawg, ye didn't wanter hunt all night for nothin', 

 did ye?" Sam asked, and Drive, sighing, laid his head again 

 on its pillow of leather scraps, and wagged a few feeble taps 

 on the floor, so saying that he did not quite understand it, 

 but concluded it was all right. 



"Hain't hed amou'ful t' cat sen mornin', heve ye Samwill?'' 

 Lisha asked, and answered, "Course ye hain't ! Mother!" 

 roaring to his wife as if she had been in the next township 



instead of the next room, and then, as Aunt Jerusha opened 

 the door, "can't ye give Samwill a bite?" 



"No, don't gim me a bite, Aunt Jerushy; I'd ruther you'd 

 gim me a kiss!" cried the gallant hunter. 



"I shan't dew nary one, Samwill," said Aunt Jerushy, "I 

 sh'd hev Huldy Purin'ton arter me, but I'll give ye some rye 

 'n' Injin bread an' col' pork 'n' beans." 



"An' give Drive that 'ere hasty puddin'," said Lisha, as 

 Sam and the hound followed Aunt Jerusha into the kitchen. 

 Then Lisha asked, "Wal, boys, haow d'd ye make it a hun- 

 tin' yist'd'y. Any on ye kill anything?" 



"Yes," Joe Hill answered, "Sam killed a, fox;" ["Of 

 course," said Lisha, in parenthesis,] 'an' the' was one or two 

 on us got shots at a fox." 



"Which Jozeff P. Hill was one?" said Solon Briggs, "a 

 firin' of his gun one several time at two identickle foxes 

 twicte, which opponent dew declare the heretobeforesaid 

 Jozeff P. did not to no intense an' puppuses tech ary one on 

 'em!" 



"An' Solon Briggs was another," retorted Joe. 

 "Nor dew I deny the acquisition intire, though my gun 

 discharged an' went off a pintiu' to a opposyte direction to 

 what the fox was at them moments of time a occupyin' of, 

 so it can't be said with strict incoherence to the truth, that 1 

 shot at him." 



"Haow did that happen?" Lisha asked. 

 "Wal, the circumstances was these an happened thus: 

 I was a settin' on a lawg a meditatin' on the mutualability of 

 the human life of mankind, pa'tie'ly in fox huntin', for I 

 hed n't heard a haoun' in an hour, when my intention was 

 distracted by a leetle noise behind me, an'turuin' my head, 

 there stood a gre't big fox not more 'n three rod off, jes 's if 

 he was an appargotion that had riz aout of the baowels of 

 the airth, which I was frustrated to the extent of my gun a 

 goin' off an' dischargin' with the butt a pintirj' at the anymil 

 fur cluster 'an what the muzzle was. It was one of the ac- 

 cidentalist accidents that ever happened to my exper'ence, 

 for I hed fust rate sight on that fox if my gim had only hen 

 pin ted." 



"An' what hev yeou got to say fur yerself, Jozeff?" 

 "O, I d' know nothin' what the matter was added things," 

 Joe replied, looking up at the low ceiling as if he expected 

 some solution of the cause of his unaccountable misses to 

 come from above. "I guess the ole gun hain't good for 

 nothin' — or I d' know but the gun 's good 'nough, but the 

 paowder; I dont b'lieve the paowder 's wuth a darn! But 

 mebby 't wa'n't the paowder — guess like 's not the shot wa'n't 

 big 'nough, or I spilt some on 'em a loadin' in a hurry or 

 suthin' or nuther— I d' know." 



"You're sartain 't wa'n't no fault o' your shootin', hain't 

 ye, Jozeff? You shot stret 'nough: we alius dew, all on us," 

 said Lisha, his eyes twinkling like the gleam of his awl in 

 the candle light. 



"Wal, I never hed no better sight on nothin' in my life 'n 

 I did on both them 'ere foxes — " 



"Not on thet aowl?" Lisha interrupted. 

 ' 'Humph ! We hain't talkin' 'baout aowls ! Come to think 

 on 't, I guess they was too fur off." 

 "Guess they be naow," from Lisha. 

 "Wal, anyhaow, I made the fur fly onct!" 

 "No daoubt on 't, no daoubt on 't, both times, an' jist as 

 fass as four scairt legs could make it fly! O, good airth an' 

 seas! I wish 't I'd got a shot ! I'd ha' showed ye! When 

 my old cannon gits pinted at 'em, it fetches 'em, I tell ye!" 



"Haow clus does it fetch 'em naow, Uncle Lisha V" asked 

 he who never spoke but to prepound some great question, 



"So. clus to," Lisha answered impressively, "that gen" ally 

 I can git their skins off on 'em. Peltier," he continued, 

 turning his glasses on the young fellow, "you hain't ben 

 hear'd from yit." 



"O, I didn't cal'late to shoot nothin', only went for the 

 fun on 't. Didn't see nothin' nor git nothin', only a 

 pocket full o' gum. Hassome?" he asked, passing about his 

 big palm full of spruce gum, like a rudely molded tray of 

 clay filled with bits of rough amber. Each one took a 

 piece. The smokers laid aside their pipes, the tobacco 

 chewers resigned their quids, and all went into a committee 

 of the whole to ruminate on the resin of the spruce. 



After all the reports were in it was found that none had 

 shot at a fox but Sam, Joe and Solon, and of these with any 

 success only the first-named, who, having now strengthened 

 his interior with a goodly lining of Aunt Jerusha's pork and 

 beans and brown bread, returned to the shop. Declining to 

 exercise his jaw on an offered portion of Peletiah's treat, he 

 filled and lighted his pipe, and got himself into a restful 

 position on a roll of sole-leather. "Wal," he said, after get- 

 ting his pipe in full blast, "I seen suthin' on the North Hill 

 'at's an oncommon sight now-er-days." 



"What was that?" one asked, and others guessed "a 

 painter," "a wolf," "a woolyneeg," or the tracks of the ani- 

 mals named. 



"Was it the footprints of some avarocious annymill, or 

 the annymill hisself ?" Solon Briggs inquired. 



"Nary one," said Sam, and added after a few deliberate 

 puffs, during which the curiosity of his auditors grew almost 

 insupportable, "a deer track." 



"Good airth an' seas! Yeou don't say so, Samwill? I 

 hain't seen nor hearn tell o' one a bein' raound in five, I d' 

 know but ten, year. Did ye f oiler it, Samwill? It's a tol'- 

 able good snow fur still-huiitinV" 



"Foller it? No!" Sam answered emphatically. "What 

 would I foller it for? I wouldn't shoot a deer on these 'ere 

 hills T I had a dozen chances at him!" 

 "1 swan I would," said Pelatiah. 



"Yas,"said Sam, with contemptuous wrath, "yeou would, 

 I ha' no daoubt on't, an' so would three-quarters on 'em 

 shoot the las' deer 'f he come to their stacks an' eat along 

 with their cattle, jest as Joel Baitlett did, consarn his giz- 

 zard! I wish 't was State's prison to kill a deer any time o' 

 year, an' hed ben, twenty year ago. Then we might hev 

 some deer in these 'ere woods, wher the' hain't one naow to 

 ten thousand acres, V where forty year ago the' was hun- 

 dreds on 'em, 'n' might jes' as well be naow, if 't want for 

 the dumbed hogs an' fools. I knowed critters 'at went on 

 tew legs an' called 'emselves men, 'at when I was a boy 

 useter go aout in Febwaryan' March an' murder the poor 

 creeters in their yards with clubs, twenty on 'em in a day, 

 when they wa'n't wuth skinnin' I'er their skins, say nothin' 

 baout the meat, which the' wa'n't 'nough on tew carcasses 

 to bait a saple trap. An' some o' them things is a livin' yit, 

 an' would dew the same again if they hed the chance. If 

 they wus gone an' a wolf left in the place of each one on 

 'em, the airth would be better off, a darned sight. Cuss 'em, 

 they 're wus 'n Injius!" 



The stillness that followed this outburst of the hunter's 

 righteous indignation was broken by Solon's rasping pre- 

 liminary "Ahem! That 'ere last remark o' yourn is an on 



