ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
101 
The following account of the last buffalo hunt in 1802, is 
taken from a Red River paper : u From the Pembina Moun- 
tain, the usual rendezvous, the hunters set out about the 
middle of September — 105 riders and some 600 carts. 
Buffaloes were not found in any numbers till they came near 
the Little Souris, where they killed 500. Here they stopped 
a week making pemmican,* in full view of a great number 
of wolves, who were prowling about in large numbers, and 
with such audacity, that dozens were seen at a time not half 
a mile from camp. About 400 of these gentry were captured 
on the trip. Six hundred fine cows were killed, whereupon 
the bull’s meat, with which they had previously loaded them- 
selves, was thrown away. Scratched faces, sprains, contu- 
sions of all kinds fell to the lot of numbers of the hunters. 
He was a bold rider, and had an extra fine horse, who 
escaped performing a somersault in these wild reckless races 
over the ground honey-combed with badger and fox holes, 
and crannies of all sorts and sizes.” 
The Bison winters amid the timber and grass of northern 
Texas, New Mexico, and Arkansas, and by the sources of 
the Red River, and the Cimarone ; half famished and mise- 
rable it starts with the springing grass, and in April or early 
in May turns its face northwards in quest of “ fresh fields 
and pastures new.” Travelling in countless legions, suffi- 
cient to cover wdiole townships, driven onward with hunger, 
it crosses successively the Arkansas, the Smoky Hill, and 
shows a dark front for miles along the south bank of the 
Platte : and here it is, that meeting the emigrant trains 
bound for the Pacific coast, collisions ensue, when thousands 
of them are shot in mere wantonness by hunters already 
gorged and overladen with buffalo meat. When food, how- 
ever, is the object, — and the hides are good for nothing in 
spring and summer, — cows ^nd calves are marked out for 
* Note.— P emmican— chopped buffalo meat, pounded with corn, and dried in 
the sun closely pressed together. 
