360 
FOREST AND STREAM* 
)cf. 29, 1964. 
congregate on the shoals and render nights sleepless with 
(in sportsmen's ears) their vocal music. 
Squan Beach, with the Atlantic Ocean on the one side 
and Barnegat Bay on the other, was at that time a penin- 
sula of sand barrens and sand dunes, a marine graveyard, 
each dune the monument of a fatal wreck, and was given 
over to the wrecker, a native fisher and gunner, who plied 
his trade as occasion might require in either line. There 
were several little cabins tenanted by these men and their 
families, which extended such hospitality as their shelter 
and coarse food could afford. Notably among them was 
John Maxon's, which was utilized by a coterie or close 
corporation of half a dozen or so New York sportsmen, 
embracing members of some of our best known New York 
families. Among them were the Schuylers, the Hamil- 
tons, the Costars, the Livingstons, the Roosevelts, not 
omitting the names of Frank Forrester and Col. Bruce, 
some of whom annually spent a fortnight in the delectable 
mansion consisting of three rooms in which were three 
or four trundle beds in which the guests were expected to 
sleep double ; and here, despite the entire absence of de- 
cent accommodation, these men, accustomed at home to 
every luxury, actually enjoyed roughing it, if only through 
contrast with their every-day home life, although it re- 
quired a strong love of sport to induce them to turn out 
of bed at 4 o'clock of a November morning and face per- 
haps a howling nor'easter accompanied by flurries of 
snow, row off in a sneakbox a mile or more to a distant 
point, and lie there on a partly submerged meadow until 
nightfall, but the return home with a bunch of geese, 
canvasback or redhead, amply repaid them. Chadwick, 
(he best known gunner and wrecker on the Jersey shore, 
succeeded John Maxon, and his place for years main- 
tained its reputation for discomfort and good shooting. 
Robert Roosevelt, Frank Forrester, and indeed many an- 
other, have spread the fame of the little seaside hostelry 
by pen and pencil, and Roosevelt's little book upon Squan 
Beach gives an amusing account of a passage-at-arms be- 
tween the Chadwicks and Ortleys for the possession of 
intervening snipe flats. 
Snipe shooting in those days was something worth 
while. I recall one morning in particular, when, after a 
violent 'southeasterly gale, our stand shot over a hundred 
large birds before breakfast, principally jack curlews, wil- 
lets and yelpers ; while the smaller varieties, dowitchers, 
etc., flew by in innumerable bunches. 
I like now to recall a somewhat similar experience in 
duck shooting off Northwest Point. We had put out our 
decoys, but nothing seemed to be flying. Presently some 
fishermen came and began hauling a seine in front of our 
point. Thinking that the game was up for the day, we 
were about going home, when along came a bunch of red- 
heads over our decoys, taking no notice of the fishermen, 
and they kept coming until we had shot away all of our 
ammunition, ;and had bagged 35 fine birds. Squan Beach 
is now given over to summer resorts, Chadwick's and 
Ortley's gunning houses being tenantless, although a 
young friend tells me he made fairly good bags of snipe 
on the Ortley meadows last summer, and one of your 
correspondents writes the Forest and Stream of a party 
who have recently taken 324 pounds of channel bass, 71 
pounds of striped bass, and one sheepshead of 15 pounds; 
so it would seem that wildfowl still fly over its meadows, 
and that Barnegat Bay is not altogether fished out yet. 
Such being the case, I am surprised that those old gun- 
nery houses should be unoccupied, and that some of our 
embryo sportsmen have not utilized them for fishing and 
shooting clubs. Avus. 
The Tragedy of the Plains* 
"What became of these vast herds of Bison ameri- 
canus, popularly called the buffalo, which formerly ranged 
over almost the entire interior of the North American 
continent, always receding before the settler, with- 
drawing beyond the Mississippi River about 1800, but 
remaining on the great plains of the West, furnishing 
almost the sole support of many tribes of Indians, and 
supplying the grandest of sport for white hunters, but 
disappearing some time in the '70s so completely, that 
only a few scattered remnants could afterward be 
found?" 
. The above question is one I have been asking for a 
score of years, without once receiving what appears to 
me to be a full and satisfactory answer. Volumes have 
been written, learned articles have appeared in various 
encyclopedias and text books, but where they attempt 
an answer at all it is always of one import: 
"Killed by hunters." "Ruthlessly slaughtered by In- 
dian and white hunters, merely for sport, or for the 
sake of the hides and perhaps a juicy morsel from the 
hump upon their backs, or a tongue." 
"This is the result," says the New International En- 
cyclopedia, in summing up this matter, "of a- century 
of unexampled waste of one of the most numerous, in- 
teresting and valuable animals in the world, and it is an 
irretrievable national disgrace." 
Not being able to agree with the conclusions of the 
writers above-mentioned, it is my present purpose to 
undertake to trace the migrations of these animals into 
the more northerly latitudes, and to show something 
of the extent and manner of their death in_ those re- 
gions, a point which has seemingly received little or no 
notice in the discussions of this question which have 
taken place. . . • 
I was a pioneer settler in one of the interior coun- 
ties of Dakota Territory, having located there in 1879, 
entered lands from the Government, and engaged for a 
number of years, in company with certain relatives, in 
general farming and the breeding of fine cattle and 
sheep. I was then fresh from my college studies, a 
country schoolmaster in the winter seasons, and a close 
student of all such works as I could procure, especially 
those pertaining to the latest developments in the 
natural sciences. I also filled several important official 
positions in my country during my residence there, 
which continued until after the division of the Terri- 
tory, and the creation of the two States of North Da- 
kota and South Dakota therefrom. I merely mention 
these facts in order to '•qualify as a witness," as they 
say in courts of law. 
If the reader will now pardon a slight digression, I 
wish to have something to say of the climate of that 
region, particularly of the severity of some of the 
winter storms which occasionally — quite rarely, as a 
matter of fact — visit it. The reason for this digression 
will be made clear further on. 
I think I cannot do better than by attempting a 
description of what still remains the severest season on 
record, to-wit: 
The BUzza d Winter of J880-8J. 
The evening of Oct. 14, 1880, was as balmy and pleas- 
ant as you could wish an October evening to be. Some- 
time during the night it began to rain, and by daylight 
on the 15th had turned to snow, which was coming down 
very rapidly. The wind increased in violence, and by 
10 o'clock you could not see an object twenty feet away. 
Although it was early in the season, and the tempera- 
ture not very low, it was the severest storm of snow 
and wind I have ever witnessed, and one could not 
venture away from the house, or endure exposure 
longer than a few minutes, without great discomfort 
and not a little danger. The storm raged in this way 
until the early morning of the 17th, when the atmosphere 
I had heard of "blizzards" before, but, although 
brought up in identically the same latitude but a few 
hundred miles eastward, and where the winters are ex- 
tremely severe, this was the first storm of that char- 
acter I had ever seen. 
My explanation of this phenomenon, while perhaps 
not scientifically exact, is as follows: 
The winds everywhere else than on the open prairies 
are intermittent. There is always something to break 
their force. They are deflected from their course by 
mountains and valleys, woods and dales, and blow with 
a yanking jerky motion. Every time the lower strata 
of the air is thus checked in its onward course the 
force is broken and thrown downward along the sur- 
face. With the prairie wind it is quite different. Hav- 
ing a clear sweep over hundreds of miles of practically 
level surface, there is nothing to deflect it; nothing but 
thewaving of the prairiegrass tending in anyway to check 
it. At times when these winds attain their greatest ve- 
locity they bear right on steadily every instant. There 
is no "backing up to get a new start," but an even for- 
ward pressure. This tends to give the air currents an 
enormous lifting power, insomuch that one will often 
wish he were tied down to the prairie grass, in order 
not to soar away. It can then be better imagined than 
described what will happen when the atmosphere is 
completely filled with flying snow. It does not drift 
as with the ordinary intermittent wind, scudding along 
the surface in gusts, dropping to the ground every time 
the air current "buckles," but rises high overhead, 
filling the air so completely as to be perfectly and con- 
tinuosly blinding, rendering it extremely dangerous for 
man or beast to be out. 
When the sun arose on the morning of Oct. 17, the 
entire aspect of the landscape seemed changed. The 
prairie at this point is quite rolling and cut by many 
dry water courses, although there is not a living stream 
in the country, and not a tree in sight. On that morn- 
ing the whole country had been brought to practically 
a dead level. The quantity of that snow was almost 
beyond belief. Everywhere on the highest land it en- 
tirely covered the prairie grass, the shallowest places 
being more than a foot deep. Wide ravines twenty feet 
deep were full to the top with a mass of snow almost as 
heavy as water, and while it afterward went off on the 
high lands, much of this October snow lay in the low 
places until about May 1. 
The task of finding cattle which had wandered away, 
and getting them home occupied me for the following two 
days. We had fortunately met with no loss, but some 
of the neighbors had not been so fortunate. I saw a 
pair of heavy, strong work oxen, which had passed 
over the brow of a hill and were standing on their feet 
in the drift, dead. Their backs were on a level with the 
surface of the snow, their noses elevated as much as 
possible, in an effort to prevent smothering, the large 
horns disclosing their location. In that position they 
had not frozen, but suffocated. 
The winter following, particularly from January to 
March, was almost a continual succession of those 
terrible blizzards, with, of course, the additional dis- 
comfort of a much lower temperature than the one 
described. The first snow was constantly added to, 
and was packed by the winds and frozen so hard as to 
be nearer the consistency of ice than of ordinary snow. 
Long before spring the shallowest places on the tops 
of the hills were from two and one-half to four feet 
deep, the entire snowfall, not counting October, being 
estimated at more than twelve feet. The railroads were 
blockaded from early January, 1881, to about May I. 
It was before the introduction of rotary snow-plows 
and other modern machinery for the purpose of clear- 
ing tracks, and all the shoveling and "bucking" with 
locomotives, which the employes of the company re- 
duced to a science, only piled the snow the higher over 
the center of the tracks, forming a huge turnpike, with 
the next drifting wind. 
I left my interests in the hands of my relatives in 
November, and made a business trip to my old home 
on the banks of the Mississippi. When ready to return 
I was prevented from doing so by the blockade. On in- 
quiring of the superintendent of the division as to when 
the railroad would be opened, he showed me a recent 
photograph of himself, standing on a box-car in a cut 
originally three feet deep, reaching upward with a lath, 
to the level of the surface of the drift. This convinced 
me that the railroad company would never open the 
line, but that they would be compelled to wait for the 
thaw to do it. Fearing my farming interests would 
suffer before that time, I set out about April 10, with 
the intention of walking over the blockaded region, about 
150 miles, to my home. 
Wonderful sights were to be found on that trip. My 
first dinner was obtained at a farm house which was 
literally buried in snow. To gain admission to the back 
door, the farmer had dug a tunnel high enough and 
broad enough to walk through comfortably. A branch 
extended to well and stable, leaving a roof over the top 
on which we heard the cattle walking as we inspected 
it. He expressed a fear that when the thaw came 
the cattle might break through and fall into the well. 
I am afraid, however, that he was compelled to move 
out a few days later, for the next time I passed that 
location it was a lake. 
My traveling companion on that walk was an at- 
torney from the next county west of my home. He ; 
telegraphed ahead from a point on the State line to say 
that he was walking through. The answer came back: 
"Bring a loaf of bread in your pocket. We are living 
on shingle nails." However, we were already out of 
the "white flour" country, and well advanced in the 
"home-made graham" belt. As there was wheat to be 
had, though no mill to grind it, at my home, I did 
not reach the "shingle nail" territory. Doubtless if L 
had, the diet would have been "railroad spikes" before 
I had satisfied my appetite. A visit to that region to- 
day would reveal many an old coffee mill which did 
duty in 1881 in grinding the "flour" for the family, now 
carefully preserved as a relic. 
In the matter of fuel, it was "axle grease day'' at one 
town we passed through. It came a little high, but 
there was no standing at expense. Prairie hay, how- 
ever, was the main staple fuel, in town as well as 
country. This was but the second season of the opera- 
tion of the road, and one hundred days' blockade had 
exhausted nearly everything in the way of supplies. 
The mortality among the people had been, much less 
than one would expect, they having early learned to be 
very cautious about exposing themselves to the danger 
of being caught away from shelter, in case of a sudden 
blizzard. 
Walking and even teaming over the snow crust was 
perfectly easy, and snowshoes were in considerable 
favor. 
The third da}', after my arrival home, it being near 
April 20, it began to thaw. The sun was now high, and 
when the south wind finally condescended to assist, 
there was no let up night or day until the snow was 
gone, and no frost from that moment until autumn. 
Raging torrents cut through those blockaded water 
courses, forming great islands of snow, which soon 
slunk away, and the seed time was with us in a re- 
markably short time. "Old Sol" had also opened the 
railroad, but so many lakes formed in unexpected places 
as to give the company new troubles and further delay 
in the running of trains. 
A distinguishing feature of this particular part of 
the prairies is the number of intermittent lakes which 
abound. Some of these lakes are eight or nine miles 
long, and contain several thousand acres. Others are 
but small marshes of one hundred acres or less. In- 
dians and others long in the country claimed that there 
had always been alternate periods of wet and dry sea- 
sons, the lakes filling and drying out in quite regular 
cycles. 
The last shadow of Indian title to these lands had 
been extinguished July 13, 1869, and the lands were 
platted by Government surveyors and became subject 
to homstead entry in 1873 and 1874. At that time, as 
the work of the surveyors clearly indicated, the lakes 
had been full of water. When I rode an Indian pony 
into the country in October, 1879, the lakes were per- 
fectly dry, and bearing grass that would have yielded 
five tons of hay to the acre. The largest one was then 
burning over. The fire was communicated from the 
heavy grass to the peaty soil, and great holes several 
feet deep were burned out, and smouldered for many 
weeks, showing that the soil itself was thoroughly dried 
out. This would have required a period of extreme 
drouth of at least seven years. When this snow of 
1881 went off the lakes were again full to the brim, and 
I believe have never since thoroughly dried out as before. 
As the blizzard winters come at the periods of great- 
est moisture, I think it safe to say that the last of 
a series of such winters had occurred not later than 
1872. This is borne out by other evidence, although 
exact records of so early a day in an uninhabited coun- 
try are difficult to obtain. 
Of succeeding winters which I witnessed there, none 
approached in severity the one above described, and 
some were actually as mild and pleasant as if removed 
at least 1,500 miles to the southward. As a rule, how- 
ever, the mean average winter temperature is about 
