June, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
249 
some of them settled in the Judith Basin 
and others along the Missouri River 
bottoms 
In the year 1882 the Eaton Brothers 
had a ranch on the Little Missouri 
River not far from what afterwards be- 
came the town of Medora. In the 
autumn of that year Howard Eaton set 
out to visit a man from whom he had 
engaged to purchase a number of buf- 
falo robes. He went down the Little 
Missouri and camped on the east side of 
the bottom, intending very early in the 
morning to cross over to the west side 
where there was a good spring, and 
where he could leave his wagons while 
he was looking up the men who had the 
robes. There were many buffalo in the 
country. 
V ERY early in the morning — before 
they were up — they heard buffalo 
running south through the valley 
of the Little Missouri, and when day 
came these animals could be seen ap- 
parently covering the bottom. All were 
running south, for Sitting Bull’s Sioux 
were in the north and were chasing 
buffalo and from time to time the flat 
distant shots of the hunters could be 
heard. It was important that Mr. Eaton 
and his men and his two wagons should 
cross the valley to reach the water that 
was on the other side, but they waited 
for some little time in the hope that 
before long the buffalo would have 
passed, and they could make their cross- 
ing undisturbed. Because of the dust 
thrown up by the running herd they 
could see only a short distance in any 
direction from the place where they 
were camped. The valley at this point 
was six or seven miles wide. From the 
flat it looked as if the valley was full 
of buffalo, running so close together as 
almost to touch each other; but from 
the top of a hill that was climbed for 
the purpose of overlooking the scene it 
was evident that there was some space 
about the buffalo that were in sight. 
Mr. Eaton estimated that there were 
30 or 40 buffalo to the acre. 
A S it was important for the outfit to 
get across the valley to the water 
on the other side, Mr. Eaton de- 
termined to attempt it. He put his two 
wagons side by side, borrowed two six- 
shooters from the men and hung these 
on his saddle horn. He had, b'esides, his 
own six-shooter and a rifle and a couple 
of belts of ammunition, as well as pistol 
cartridges stuffed in every pocket. 
Starting down toward the valley in close 
order, he began, when he reached the 
place where the buffalo were running, 
to try to turn them as cow punchers 
sometimes turn stampeding cattle, and 
as old plains hunters know that wild 
animals may be turned, by shooting into 
the ground in front of the animals and 
throwing up the dirt or dust in their 
faces. Following this plan the buffalo 
did turn to one side and opened a pas- 
sage into which the wagons drove. The 
slow advance continued, but after going 
a short distance the buffalo turned in 
behind the outfit, and now this little oval 
or ellipse, containing the wagon and the 
men and surrounded by buffalo, moved 
on across the running buffalo, keeping 
open the way by shots in front of them. 
Old buffalo hunters remember some- 
thing of the vast clouds of dust thrown 
up by a herd of buffalo, and in this case 
the air must have been so full of dust, 
that what was knocked up by the shots 
would hardly be noticeable, and it may 
have been the noise of the shots that 
turned them. At all events they did 
turn out. It took about three and a half 
hours for the party to cross the valley 
and we may imagine that when they had 
passed up on to the bluffs on the other 
side and looked back on the way they 
had come, their chests must have ex- 
panded with great sighs of relief. 
T HESE buffalo passed south all day 
long, and there seemed no lessening 
>and no increase in their numbers. 
They kept passing from about 5 A. M. 
to dark — perhaps 7 P. M. Not long 
after dark the noise grew less and dur- 
ing the night it practically ceased. 
Mr. Eaton, of course, had no means 
of concluding how many buffalo passed 
during this stampede. He states 
that the valley was six or seven 
miles wide and assumed that the 
buffalo were evenly distributed over 
it, and estimated that there were 30 or 
40 buffalo to the acre. He guessed 
there were a million of them. If we ac- 
cept his estimate of the distance across 
the valley the number of buffalo to the 
acre, and the time during which the ani- 
mals were running, it would seem that 
the number of buffalo must have been 
several millions. 
We know too little of the conditions to 
attempt to calculate the number of buf- 
falo passing up this valley. If the con- 
ditions were as assumed — and this is 
mere guesswork — the number is far too 
great for belief, and we may feel sure 
that there was no such number as would 
be implied by 30 buffalo to the acre over 
a width of six and one-half miles. 
DR. HENSHALL ATTHEWORLD’SFAIR 
THE TER-CENTENARY ANNIVERSARY OF IZAAK WALTON’S BIRTHDAY WAS 
CELEBRATED AT A REPLICA OF THE WALTON-COTTON FISHING LODGE 
TWENTY-SIXTH PAPER 
URING the years 1888 to 1892 I 
was secretary and then president 
of the Ohio State Fish Commis- 
sion. During my incumbency as presi- 
dent the propagation of whitefish was 
prosecuted at the state hatchery at 
Sandusky, and as an experiment the 
hatching of sturgeon eggs was success- 
fully accomplished. The cultivation of 
German carp was discontinued, the 
fish seined from the ponds and sent to 
market and replaced with marbled cat- 
fish, or bullheads, a good food fish, and 
one that will thrive in any water, and 
under any condition favorable to the 
German carp. We designed and had 
constructed the fish car “Buckeye” that 
did good service for twenty-five years. 
The work of plotting and surveying the 
commercial fishing grounds on the 
south shore of Lake Erie was begun, in 
order that fishing rights and locations 
could be allotted, under license, to the 
market fishermen ; but the work, unfor- 
tunateh 7 , was discontinued afterward 
and subsequently abandoned. 
During the years 1891 to 1893, in 
connection with the U. S. Fish Com- 
mission, I assisted in the preparation 
of its exhibit for the World’s Colum- 
bian Exposition, at Chicago. In 1891 
I visited the manufacturers and deal- 
ers in fishing tackle and angling ap- 
pliances to solicit their exhibits for 
the Great Fair. Among others visited 
was Mr. Charles F. Orvis, of Manches- 
ter, Vt., one of the best rod makers of 
his day, while his artificial flies were 
considered by many to be the best. His 
daughter, Mrs. Mary Orvis Marbury, 
was superintendent of the artificial fly 
department. She had just then com- 
pleted her matchless book, “Favorite 
Flies and Their Histories,” but its pub- 
lication had not been definitely decided, 
and I was asked to look over the manu- 
script. Mrs. Marbury and I sat up 
half the night examining every page 
critically. My advice was to publish it 
as soon as possible as it was the best 
book on the subject ever written. 
During the months of January, Feb- 
ruary and March, 1892, I visited Tam- 
pa and Key West, Florida, for the pur- 
pose of collecting a series of salt water 
fishes to be used in making gelatine 
casts, painted in life colors, and to be 
exhibited in the Government Building 
of the Exposition. Altogether some 
two hundred specimens were collected, 
mostly food-fishes, but such novelties 
as tarpon, jewfish, sailfish, saw-fish, 
sword-fish, sting-rays, whip-rays and 
sea-turtles were included. Each fish 
was first frozen in a refrigerator, then 
wrapped in soft white paper, sewed 
up in cheese-cloth and shipped by ex- 
press to Washington City, there to be 
placed in cold storage until utilized. A 
list of the collection, annotated and 
with field notes, is published in the 
Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission 
for 1894. 
During the years 1891 and 1892 I 
was President of the American Fish- 
eries Society, and during the entire 
year of 1893, having resigned from the 
U. S. Fish Commission, I was Assistant 
Chief of the Department of Fisheries 
of the Exposition, and had especial 
