362 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
lMay 8, 1897 
THE WHITE BUFFALO. 
A Tale of the Northwest Territories. 
In the year 1874 tlie Northwest Mounted Police marched 
west from Winnipeg and into the then unknown country 
lyinpf along the Rocky Mountains, from the Saskatchewan 
River to the American boundary line. 
The country, from the Cypress Hills to the mountains, 
about 250 miles in breadth, and as far north as the Red Deer 
River, about 300 miles north of the boundary line, fairly 
teemed with buffalo, and you could for days travel with- 
out once losing sight of countless thousands continually on 
the move. 
This was a novel and exciting sigHt to the men in the force 
on its march west, and after sighting the lirst herds a closer 
view was soon had of them, as buflfalo beef was to be the 
main sustenance of that force for some years after, until beef 
cattle were brought in from the south in 1878. 
In 1874 the vast herds had not commenced to diminish, 
and it was an easy matter to overtake and slaughter them 
The Blackfoot tribe of Indians, who then inhabited the 
plains north of the boundary, lived altogether on the buf- 
falo, as not only did thejr purchase tobacco, tea, blankets, 
ammunition and other articles they required, by their trade 
for robes either at the American trading forts along the Mis- 
souri or at the Hudson's Ba 7 posts in the north, but their 
tents and clothing, together with their daily food, was gained 
from the herds of these animals. The buffalo did not seem 
at all to mind the vicinity of Indian camps, as the large 
herds were always met with in close proximity to one or 
more Indian camps out on one of their hunts. In fact, so 
near these camps would the buffalo graze, that it was not at 
all unusual for a t^and to be cut off from the main herd and 
driven right in among the lodges, where many of them were 
killed. It was not the Indians that caused the disappearance 
and extinction of the buffalo, but the advent of the white 
settler, the smoke from whose camp-fire or building these 
animals seemed to have a horror of, avoiding the settlements 
as much as possible. 
The color of the buffalo is of course well known and never 
varied, being dark-brown and black around the head and 
neck; this color varied in shade, being of a much lighter 
shade in the summer than in the winter, and it was only in 
the winter that the robe had any value, being then thick 
and dark, while during the summer the hair was shed, and 
the skin worthless. On our arrival in the country many in- 
quiries were made as to the existence of any white buffalo, 
but, although having daily intercourse with the In- 
dians in many parts of the country, no record of any such 
animal could be gained. White beaver and wolves and other 
animals of that color were heard of, and sometimes ob- 
tained, but a white buffalo, never. 
A very rare class of buffalo robe was sometimes seen, but 
very seldom, the beaver or silk robe, so called from the 
very fine, silky quality of the hair. These were very rare, 
and in ten years among the buffalo I hive only seen three. 
They were, of course very valuable. Sometimes the hair 
had a greyish appearance near the skin. The robe was 
nearly always of a cow, very fine and very light. Many ex- 
planations were given by the Indians for this peculiar coat, 
and the right one was no doubt that given by Montana In- 
dians, that it was caused by the constant licking of many 
animals in the herd, to which fome motherless calf belonged, 
it having become the pet of the band, the animals testifying 
, their liking in that manner. 
Animals of this class were always small and hard to kill, 
being kept in the center of the herd while they were on the 
run and seeming to be protected by the bodies of the rest. 
And aside from this variety, which were seldom seen until 
the year 1875, no record of a white buffalo, or of one differ- 
ent from the usual variety, was ever known to have been 
seen by the Blackfoot Indians. 
Puring the summer of that year bands of Indians return- 
ing from a hunt far out on the plains brought in stories of 
having seen at different times and in different places, and 
always in the center of a large herd, a white buffalo. They 
had used their best horses in the effort to overtake it, to no 
purpose, never being able to get anywhere near the animal. 
At first we did not pay much attention to these stories, but 
still it kept cropping up from different camps, and at laet, 
in the fall of 1875, I myself had a chance to verify the truth 
of the report. I had been sent on duty north along the Red 
Deer River and was camped near a large band of Blackfoot, 
who were hunting south of that river The buffalo had 
moved north in vast numbers, and the prairie was black with 
them, 
I had gone out one morning with a party of Blaokfeet to 
see one of their hunts, and also to try and kill for my- 
self. My horse was a good one, and much faster than any 
belonging to the Indian hunters; I had got detached from 
the party, becoming tired of the slaughter, and must have 
been at least twenty miles from camp, when I made for a 
smaU clump of timber not far off, intending to build a fire 
and roast a portion of some buffalo meat I "had on the saddle 
with me. A few bands of moving buffalo were in sight, but 
far off. As I approached the wood a band of about a hun- 
dred animals burst out of the brush and made oft' to the 
south, and yes, most certainly, in the middle of them was a 
white buffalo. Although they were a quarter of a mile 
away, there could be no mistake about it; he was there as 
large as life, and quite white, and running like a deer. 
There was no time to much more than take in the scene, but 
I gathered up the reins and was after him, determined to 
bag that buffalo or kill my horse. 
Qh, what a race it was, mile after mile; and although all 
the band v?ith the exception of about a dozen had split off 
and gone in different directions, the white animal, with his 
body guard of about a dozen, kept at about the same dis- 
tance ahead. I could catch a glimpse of him now and then, 
and there was no doubt he was snow white. Get within 
shot I could not, for many miles. At last they began to lire, 
and, although my horse was tired also, I had good hopes of 
coming up and getting a shot. Alas! for such a chance. 
Of a sudden my horse lurched forward on his nose, send- 
ing me over his head on to the prairie, and turning a somer- 
sault himself, missing me by only a few feet. He had put 
his foot into a badger hole and brought my hopes of a white 
robe to a sudden end. . . . s 
I got up and shook myself, not much the worse, and my 
first glance was after the buffalo. There they were, seem- 
ingly miles away, and on the strong gaUop. All hopes of 
V ever seeing them again had to be given up, as, after getting 
my horse on his feet, he stood panting and utterly done up. 
I had, therefore, to make the best of my way back to camp, 
getting in late that night, and very much disgusted. After 
this there was no more doubt as'to the reality of the exist- 
ence of the white buffalo; but, although he was often seen 
in the distance, sometimes at points several hundred miles 
apart, and on two occasians was chased by parties of our 
men, no one got near him; and his speed, together with thut 
of a small band that seemed always to surround him, be- 
came noted among the Indians, who were in- despair of ever 
being able to get a buffalo runner to catch him. It was not 
until another year had passed that it was my good fortune 
to see him again, and for the last time. 
During the following summer I had occasion to take a 
party of police north to Bow River to arrest a Blackfoot 
Indian who, a few mouths previous, had killed an Indian 
belonging to a camp of Crees, I found the Blackfeet 
assembled in a very large camp on the bench land overlook- 
ing the Bow River on the north side. There must have 
been 300 lodges in the camp, and they had come to this point 
to hold their medicine lodge. They had quantities of meat, 
the buffalo being in great numbers not far to the north. 
In such a large camp it was difficult to find the Indian I 
wanted, and I remained some days in their vicinity, awaiting 
a good opportunity to make him prisoner without awaken- 
ing the suspicions of the re^l of the camp. 
For some days a very heavy prairie fire had been raging to 
the north, and the 'wind changing to that quarter on my 
third day in camp, was driving the fire toward the river, and 
everything was covered with a dense cloud of smoke. The 
third night the wind increased to a gale, bringing the fire 
down very fast toward us, and although the smoke was 
thick, the long line of fire to the north, running east and 
west as far as the eye could reach, made everything as plain 
as day, but with a deep red light reflected from the sky. 
It was a most weird scene that night, and to make matters 
worse, about midnight the immense herds of buff lo that 
had been stamptding toward the west all day, ha l, at a con- 
siderable distance from the river, begun to draw in tow«»rd 
us. We could hear the thundering sound of the multitudes 
as they rushed along parallel to the river, edging down more 
toward us every mihute as the fire hemmed them in, and 
their bellowings could be heard above the din. Now and 
then a band of several hundred would break out of the 
smoke and swerve to]ward the river, and above and below us 
we could hear them crossing. 
The large Indian damp and also our own tents were in a 
bad situation for aniemergency of this kind, being not far 
from a steep bank, ojver a hundred feet in height, which 
dropped straight down to the river. About a quarter of a 
mile west of us a deep canon ran down to the river from the 
prairie, partly filled with timber, and it was this point that 
the buffalo seemed trying to make for. 
The Indians were in a state of great consternation, and had 
gathered in their bands of ^many hundred horses and sent 
them down to the river with some of the young men, while 
a hundred others mounted and rode along the line of passing 
buffalo, firing and yeUing like so many demons, trying to 
turn the herd away from the camp. 
It was certainly a grand and awe-inspiring sight; the 
thousands of buffalo passing on the full gallop, not a quarter 
of a mile away; the shguting of the Inaians mingled with 
the bellowing and thunderous tramp of the herd; the dense 
smoke, and all colored by the red light of the fire reflected 
from the sky — and it was cert»jinly not without danger, as at 
any time the frightened herd might rush through the camp, 
and in a very few minutes there would be nothing left of us. 
Our party, together with Indians, both men and women, 
set fire to the prairie grass in fifty different places in a "line 
along the camp and some hundreds of yards to the north. 
This would help to prevent the buffalo running over us, and 
there was not much danger of the fire doing auy harm in the 
camp, as in and around the camp the horses and Indians had 
trampled the ground nearlv bare. 
We anxiously watched the result, which atfirstwas doubt- 
ful. One band of several hundred animals broke away from 
the hunters and the main herd, and running between +he 
Indian camp and our tents, a space only a few hundred 
yards wide, blind with smoke and terror, ran right over the 
bank, which had a sheer fall of over 100ft., and we could 
hear them crashing to the river bed below, with terrific bel- 
lowings. After about half an hour of painful anxiety the 
main herd seemed to have decided its course, running down 
the valley to the west that I have before mentioned, and for 
several hours we could hear their plunges in the river as they 
swam across. About daylight the run slackened, only now 
and then a buffalo being seen. The fire had passed to the 
west and was a long way off, burning as fiercely as ever, but 
all to the north was a blackened expanse of burnt ground, 
with here and there a dead buffalo to be seen. 
The Indians were already out and cutting up the dead ani- 
mals, and a party was getting ready to go down to the riv^r 
to cut up and secure the robes of those which had plunged 
over the cut bank during the night. From the top of the 
banks we could see a mass of them, and a good many of 
them were on their feet, but so injured as to be unable to 
move far. With some of the men I went down with the 
Indians, taking our rifles with us, as a wounded buffalo is 
not a nice animal to go near empty-handed. 
When we got down to where they lay, near the edge of 
the river, what a sight it was! There must have been at 
least 800 in one pile, one on the top of another, and we 
could see that many of those below were still living. Many 
were on their feet and made attempts to charge as we drew 
near, but they were ai once shot by the Indians. In and 
across the river a number were to be seen slowly moving off, 
s"me of 1 hem badly crippled. These were not molested, but 
all our attention was givefi to the great mass of dead and 
woimded. The wounded were killed as fast as they could 
be got at I had walked down to the water's edge and was 
watching some of the wounded animals on the other shore, 
when my attention was called by a great shout from the 
Indians engaged in moving the bodies from the great pile I 
have mentioned. On going there I found them greatly ex- 
cited and all thronging round a geat pile of carcasses, from 
under which they were digging one which, although covered 
with smoke, dust and clay, was without doubt white. 
I pressed through the throng, and there, lying before me, 
and looked upon with the greatest astonishment by both In- 
dians and whites, lay the long hunted and far-famed white 
buffalo. It took a close scrutiny at first to tell the class lo 
which he belonged, but there was no doubt whatever about 
I it; he was a white Texas steer, only one spot of red on his 
• side, but the long horn and short hair identified him at once. 
How he got among the buffalo will never be known. He 
must have joined a band when very young and that, too^ 
far south, for in those days no domestic catOe were to be 
found north of the Missouri River as far west as this. He 
was an old anitnal and must have been for many years with 
the buffalo. "W e found more than one scar on him where at 
different times he had been wounded, and one of his long 
horns was broken short off. We tried the beef, but it was 
tough. His hide we took with us 
This was the result of the only report I ever heard in 
many years among the Indians of a white buffalo bring seen, 
and I much doubt if such an animal was ever known. What 
thousands of reports of the kind must this one lone white 
steer have given rise to, traveling for years with the great 
buffalo herds, seen sometimes far south of Jhe Missouri 
River and then again hundreds of miles to the north. 'No 
doubt most of the stories of white buffalo seen at intervals of 
several years sprang from him. This was also the only case 
I have ever Known of a domestic animal running with the 
buffalo herds. His history would be a thrilling one if 
known, but bis death put an end to the white buffalo stories 
in the Northwest forever. C, E. Dbnnet. 
[Capt. Denney's graphic story is full of inlerest, and he 
paints a capital picture of one of the scenes often witnessed 
in the buffalo country in the old days. 
_We believe, however, that bis assertion that white buffalo 
did not occur, and that this steer gave rise to most of the 
reports of such albinos occurring in the Northwest, is an 
error. We have been told by the Indians of the killing of 
white buffalo. Their folk stories often refer to such animals, 
and we know white men who have seen animals which if 
not white were mostly white. 
A story in some respects similar to that told by Gapt. 
Denny was given us years ago by Mr. C. J. Jones, then of 
Kansas, who also believed that the white buffalo so often 
heard of -were domesticated animals which ran with the buf- 
falo herds. 
This occurred not infrequently, and it is only a few years 
since a Kansas correspondent sent Fobest and Stream an 
account of an old yellow Texas cow which used to run with 
the buffalo on one of the forks of the Republican River in 
Kansas twenty-five years ago. 
It is too late now to settle by the inspection of specimens 
the question of the white buffalo's occurrence, but we believe 
that the testimony of actual witnesses that they did occur 
must far outweigh the opinions of people who never saw 
any-] 
ON THE POTOMAC.-lIl. 
I stood on the bank near the bpaiitiful river, 
Whose eriLsiteniTig waves wpre plainly in sight; 
I could see old Potomac still ripple and quiver, 
la manhood my pleasure— my boyliooa's delight. 
At the conclusion of a brief description of some of the 
characteristics of that portion of the feathered species 
classed as ultra water fowl, which annually migrated to 
this terraqueous extent of territory to participate in 
nature's abundant supplies, I closed the second stage of 
my tour with an episode of a contest between an eagle and 
a fishhawk. 
I now propose to mention superficially some of the 
feathered sojourners, constituting the connecting links in 
the feathered race. 
Although great numbers belonging in this class inhabit 
this place during one-half the year at least, and notwith- 
standing the large and promiscuous population within its 
precincts, a stranger passing along its margin during the 
middle of the day gets not the slightest idea of the various 
and beautiful colonies of animated nature assembled be- 
neath its tangled coverts; and gazing over its apparently 
repulsive surface of stagnant pools, sawgrass, cattails, etc., 
duidng the silence prevailing throughout its extent at that 
time of the day, he would turn from it in disgust, im- 
pressed with the idea that it was a faithful picture of deso- 
lation and solitude. 
On the other hand, those who have penetrated its laby- 
rinths and visited the haunts of its inhabitants know it to 
be, from ocular demonstration, the antithesis of solitude 
and desolation. 
During the early morning and evening hours it presents 
a scene of vivid life and activity, radiant with the charms 
of brilliant and diversified plumage of the different families 
and species with which beautiful nature adorns her feath- 
ered subjects; while the numberless and varied notes of 
pleasure or alarm emanating from countless throats, if not 
in consonance with the lexicon of modern music, is un- 
doubtedly harmonious to a sportsman's ear. 
Among the above-mentioned sojourners, which are 
somewhat amphibious, and, therefore, constituting the 
links connecting the feathered race in one family, the 
rail class is perhaps entitled to precedence on the ground 
of its aquatic nature and habits. They were quite abun- 
dant, but exceedingly shy, and seldom left their cover un- 
less their haunts were invaded. There was at that time 
considerable mystery connected with this bird, which has 
not been entirely eradicated (particularly from the.minds 
of the colored race), although their habits have been in- 
vestigated satisfactorily. They are somewhat nocturnal; 
their migrations are performed at night, and their food is 
obtained principally under the same conditions. This, in 
connection with their sudden advent and departure, 
caused many to believe that they buried themselves in 
the mud, like turtles, from which they emerged at the 
proper season. Some contend that they are frogs, and of- 
fer what they call irrefutable evidence by saying that no 
one ever heard or saw a frog in the swamp when the rail 
were there. Yet I do not think the advocates of that con- 
ception have ever found a frgg with rudimental wings, or 
pin fea.ther8 growing from its rear, or in any other state of 
transition, except when discarding its appendage as a tad- 
pole. 
I have also occasionally seen among the thickets of this 
pocoson a bird similar in form and movements to the rail, 
and, no doubt, belonging to that class, but double in size, 
which we called a king rail. As I have never found them 
in social proximity, feeding or otherwise, I have thought 
they were transient wanderers from a more South- 
ern latitude. Here could also be found a numerous 
class of residents (to the manner born) somewhat similar in 
form to the rail, but not so positively aquatic or secluaive 
in their habits. The bird was about the size of the king 
rail; we called it the Indian hen, and I suppose it belongs 
to the class of waders. It is evidently one grade in ad- 
vance of the rail. Their nests were constructed in trees 
contiguous to their feeding resorts, and thej'- were frequently 
on the wing following at a slight elevation the swamp 
drains, and occasionally uttering a "squawk." 
Another interesting visitor could be found here in con- 
