I 
134 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 25, 1908. 
element, for when the dust-like snow was driven 
into his close suit of hairy fur he shook him¬ 
self much like a horse and kept himself in good 
condition to weather the storm. Always on the 
alert, if alarmed, he would face a driving bliz¬ 
zard on a keen run, but when all was quiet 
would go to feeding, root up the deep frozen 
snow with his powerful nose, leaving it in ridges 
at times, as if turned over by a plow. Nature 
had given them a fine sense for getting water 
under such conditions, an instinct for stamping 
open frozen springs and lakes in the long cold 
winter months. They did not suffer for lack 
of water as cattle now do on the same range. 
In those days the buffalo rubbing stones were 
highly polished from constant use by those 
powerful animals. 
When hotly chased in the running hunt, I have 
seen a bull with the most magnificent courage 
leap off a twenty to twenty-five foot river bank 
into the water and there give a fine exhibition 
of his wonderful swimming powers, and at the 
outcome plow his way through a low lying river 
beach of quicksand and mud that a goose would 
not care to roost upon ; at last climbing the high 
line of bad land bluffs on the opposite side with¬ 
out any apparent exhaustion of his wonderful 
strength. Riding among the Indian hunters I 
demanded they give him his life as a brave, 
and when they caught the spirit of my demand 
they joined in a chorus of yells to encourage 
him, as at times his face only appeared out of 
the thin mud. Right glad was I when I saw 
success and safety crown the persistence which 
carried him through this desperate run for his 
life. 
My old Indian friend White Calf related an 
instance of the wonderful strength of the buf¬ 
falo bull. While on a journey to war to the 
South with a large party of Blackfeet they saw 
as they approached the crossing of a river what 
looked like a person, showing his head now and 
then above the bluff bank, as the buffalo passed 
near it on their way to water. Looking through 
his spy glass it was seen to be a bear lying in 
wait to kill a buffalo. The warriors sat down 
to watch the result. After a time a cow came 
along on her way to water and took the trail 
close under the bluff where the bear lay. She 
was followed by a bull which, however, had for 
some reason lagged a little behind. The bear 
sprang upon the cow and attempted to drag her 
down. She cried in alarm and struggled fiercely 
to shake him off. At her cry the bull charged, 
but as the cow swung around with the bear the 
bull could not at first attack. But in a moment 
his chance came. He caught the bear on his 
horns under the stomach and tossed him high in 
air, then caught him on his horns before he 
struck the ground and tossed him again. When 
the bear struck the ground he was broken down 
in the hind parts and his entrails were hang¬ 
ing out. He dragged himself away, while the 
bull made off with the cow. 
The stomach contents are much greater in the 
buffalo than in the domestic cow, and the chips 
of the buffalo were larger than those of cattle. 
These were a great boon on the treeless plains 
to the Indian people, the emigrants and all who 
needed, for fuel. Yet this also made possible 
the fierce pursuit of that noble game and its 
extermination by the merciless commercial hide 
hunters. 
In the buffalo’s stomach I have found hair 
balls as large as a small orange, glazed over, 
and light in weight. A Kentuckian, a close ob¬ 
server of nature, informed me the balls of hair 
as I called them were the true mad stone, but 
I never could make myself believe it. 
The Indian hunters have given me hard masses 
found in the stomach shaped like a flat stone 
one-half inch by two inches by three inches, which 
they pulverized and used for paint. These gave 
a good yellow color that pleased them. I took 
these stones to be an accumulation of alkali clay 
eaten by the buffalo, which from the action of 
the acids of the stomach had taken on the yellow 
color so highly prized as paint by the Indians. 
While they could find an abundance of red 
clay paint, yellow paint was difficult to obtain. 
Indians have also shown me so-called gall 
stones of quite large size that they had found 
in the kidneys and particles of a clay-like sub¬ 
stance found in the tube-like recesses of the 
liver. These substances they used and prized 
highly as face paint. 
Abnormal Buffalo. 
Indian hunters sometimes killed a buffalo with 
a very fine furred robe with but little hair on it 
and that with a peculiar luster. These were gen¬ 
erally long yearlings or two-year-old heifers. 
The Indians called them beaver robes, and the 
Indian traders silk robes. They were highly 
prized and made a very handsome robe. Of the 
many hundreds of Indian hunters but one or 
more would secure one of these in the season’s 
hunt. They were very rare. During many 
years, having handled many thousands of the 
hides and robes of the buffalo, I have handled 
but three silk robes. 
The daughter of Lone Chief told me that her 
father had killed a cow, white except for a 
black ring around the eyes. Other Indians have 
told me that a man of their tribe had killed a 
white three-year-old cow. The Indian hunter 
does not take or use the meat of such unusual 
animals, believing them to be favored by the 
Great Spirit—the Sun God dresses them prettily, 
and they are envied by their less fortunate com¬ 
panions who do not possess his friendship. 
I have never seen buffalo without horns, but have 
seen old cows with stumpy horns which had the 
appearance of being muleys until one got close 
to them. Once I killed what I supposed to be 
a muley cow. She had a high tuft of hair be¬ 
tween the horns which were unusually small and 
crumpled. This gave her the muley appearance 
at a distance. The skull of the buffalo is not 
so pointed between the horns as that of cattle. 
I have seen two buffalo of immense size-—so- 
called berdash or hermaphrodites. They had 
very dark thick hair with an unusually long tail. 
Aside from the large size the female character 
seemed to predominate. 
Indians have told me of buffalo robes of 
immense size seen in the hands of far northern 
Indians. The son of Lone Chief told me of an 
immense bull robe for which his father gave a 
horse to a far northern Indian hunter. It was 
very black in color. Some of the old Blackfeet 
Indians of the north have told me of a buffalo 
different from those that roam the great plains, 
with a long body, short legs and long tail, much 
like a domestic cow, of very large size, with a 
smaller hump. These calves at birth are very 
large, and they go in small herds. But Indian 
nature is much like the white man’s, for out of 
its darkness the far north sends its mysteries 
that color his ardent imagination. 
Charles Aubrey, 
[to be continued.] 
CAMP SUPPLIES. 
Camp supplies should include Borden’s Eagle 
Brand Condensed Milk, Peerless Brand Evapor¬ 
ated Milk and Borden’s Malted Milk, all of 
which contain substantial and compact nourish¬ 
ment, and supplying every milk or cream re¬ 
quirement.— Adv. 
A BISON MOTHER AND CALF. 
Copyright, 1905, by the New York Zoological Society. 
