THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
only stopped to pick its way when fallen timber obstructed the game 
trails, and then set off again when the ground became more level. As night 
came on we were many miles from our horses, which we feared might be 
stampeded by a bear, so it was with great chagrin that we retraced our 
steps from the chase of one of the last of the buffalo. The chance of seeing 
another buffalo did not occur again. 
There have been many attempts to preserve the buffalo, and it is 
satisfactory to think that most of these have been successful. Perhaps the 
greatest success is the Allard herd. Charles Allard, a ranchman of Mon- 
tana, secured a few buffalo and kept them in the Flathead Reservation 
until 1888, when they numbered thirty-five, and in 1907 the increased stock, 
added to the herd of one Pablo, an Indian, raised the numbers to 628. In 
1908 these were bought by the Canadian Government and transported by 
train to their new reserve to the west of Edmonton, where they are now 
flourishing. 
Dr Hornaday (“ Rep.” Amer. Bison Soc. 1908, p. 74) estimated that 
there were about 2,047 buffalo in a wild state and under domestication. 
At the present day there are probably nearly double this number, and there 
seems no fear that the species may be extinct; it is thus possible that we 
shall yet see the buffalo restored to large tracts of their original range (at 
present useless for farming), where sportsmen may be allowed to hunt 
for and shoot a single specimen at a moderate fee. 
Poor Phil Oberlander, who was killed by an African buffalo on the Nile 
in 1911, was so determined to add an American bison to his collection 
that he offered the custodian of the Yellowstone herd a large sum of money 
(£350) to be allowed to shoot a bull. His offer was at first scorned, and he 
was told to leave the place at once or he would be arrested; but on reflection 
the Committee of management discovered that one old bull was worn out 
and dangerous, and that £350 was a useful sum of money. The result was 
that Oberlander killed the bull through the bars of the enclosure, paid his 
money and took his very tame trophy to Europe. He told me these facts 
himself and showed me a photo of the dead bull with himself standing 
beside it. The moral is that cash can still do a good deal, even in official 
circles in America as elsewhere. We often hear sad jeremiads on the dis- 
appearance of the American bison, but all who have carefully studied the 
questions of colonization will agree that when white men enter a “ new ” 
country and take up land for the purposes of farming, the first thing that 
they do is to destroy the wild animals that eat grass. Most of the early 
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