THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
nearly destroyed, there seemed evidently to be a recognition of a friend 
in me, as he straightened up, and, trembling with excitement, dashed 
off at full speed upon the prairie, in a straight line. We turned our 
horses and resumed our march, and when we had advanced a mile 
or more, we looked back and on our left, where we saw again the ill- 
fated animal surrounded by his tormentors, to whose insatiable 
voracity he unquestionably soon fell a victim.” 
In August and September the sexes were mixed, but by the end of 
September the bulls and cows were divided. By October the ragged 
appearance was lost and they were in good condition and pelage to meet 
the rigours of winter, and led by some old cow the herds gradually worked 
north again. 
In confinement bulls continue to breed and be permitted in the herd 
until they are twelve or thirteen years old, but after this they are generally 
driven out, and, bar accidents, will live for twenty or more years. Cows 
have been known to breed for twenty -nine years, and the period of life 
of the buffalo seems to be very much the same as deer and horses. Colonel 
Jones thinks that the life of the buffalo is longer than domestic cattle, and 
says that he knew of a cow that lived in the Zoological Gardens in Paris 
for thirty -one years, whilst he believes that he has seen wild ones that 
were ten or fifteen years older. The cow begins to breed at three years 
of age and has a calf nearly every spring or summer. 
The disappearance of the buffalo has been very rapid. At the beginning 
of the nineteenth century they had vanished from east of the Mississippi. 
In 1832, Gatlin calculated that 150,000 to 200,000 robes were brought to 
market each year, which would mean a slaughter of from two to three 
millions by the Indians alone. Fremont says they were going fast on 
the western slope of the Rockies, but they were still abundant on their 
great range east of the Rockies. He says (‘‘Exploring Expedition,” 1848, 
pp. 144-5): 
“ At any time between the years 1824 and 1836 a traveller might 
start from any given point south or north to the Rocky Mountain 
range, journeying by the direct route to the Missouri River, and during 
the whole distance his road would be always among large bands of 
buffalo, which would never be out of his view until he arrived almost 
within sight of the abodes of civilization. At this time (1842) the 
buffalo occupy but a very limited space, principally along the eastern 
base of the Rocky Mountains, sometimes extending at their southern 
350 
