FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 18, 1910. 
fell or were caught by cows and killed, guns 
burst, sometimes men were shot. By bursting 
guns men lost hands, arms'and sometimes even 
lives, and Indian hunters have told me of men 
falling from their horses in such a way that 
whip stocks, arrows, bows and even guns were 
driven through their bodies. The hunter’s horse 
drew up close to the buffalo, not more than two 
or three yards from it, and the shot was fired as 
the gun dropped to the level. The well trained 
horse swerved away from the buffalo at the shot 
and the man, prepared for the change of direc¬ 
tion, at once began to reload. When the chase 
was over, the hunters returned over the buffalo- 
strewn prairie to identify the animals that each 
had killed. This was a matter of long prac¬ 
tice, and an outdoor man can well understand 
how it was done. 
“Of all the operations which mark the hun¬ 
ter’s life, and are essential to his ultimate suc¬ 
cess, the most perplexing perhaps is that of find¬ 
ing out and identifying the animals he kills dur¬ 
ing a race. Imagine four hundred horsemen en¬ 
tering at full speed a herd of some thousands of 
buffalo air in rapid motion. Riders in clouds of 
dust and volumes of smoke, which darken the 
air, crossing and recrossing each other in every 
direction; shots on the right, on the left, behind, 
before, here, there, two, three, a dozen at a 
time, everywhere in close succession, at the same 
moment. Horses stumbling, riders falling, dead 
and wounded animals tumbling here and there, 
one over the other; and this zigzag and bewild¬ 
ering melee continued for an hour or more to¬ 
gether in wild confusion, and yet, from prac¬ 
tice, so keen is the eye, so correct the judgment 
of the hunter and so discriminating his memory, 
that after getting to the end of the race he can 
not only tell the number of animals he had shot 
down, but the position in which each lies—on 
the right or on the left side—the spot where the 
shot hit and the direction of the ball, and also 
retrace his way step by step through the whole 
race and recognize every animal he had the 
fortune to kill without the least hesitation or 
difficulty. To divine how this is accomplished 
bewilders the imagination. To unriddle the 
Chinese puzzles, to square the circle, or even to 
find out the perpetual motion seems scarcely 
more puzzling to the stranger than that of a 
hunter finding out his own animals after a buf¬ 
falo race.” 
Ross asked one of the hunters how it was pos¬ 
sible that each could know his own animals in 
such a melange? He answered, by putting a 
question remarkable for its appropriate inge¬ 
nuity, “Suppose,” said he, “that four hundred 
learned persons all wrote words here and there 
on the same sheet of paper, would not the fact 
be that each scholar would point out his own 
hand writing?” It is true that practice makes 
perfect, but with all the perfection experience 
can give, much praise is due to the discriminat¬ 
ing knowledge of these people, quarrels being 
rare, indeed, among them on such occasions. 
Soon after the hunters had left the camp the 
women started out with the carts to bring in 
the meat. Probably by the time they reached 
the killing ground, the men had returned and 
were hard at work skinning and cutting up the 
meat. The hunters worked back, skinning first 
the animals that they had last killed and com¬ 
ing the last of all to those first shot d wn. 
Besides the dangers of the actual cha there 
was always a chance that a hunter separated 
from his own people, working off to one side 
or in some concealed place, might be attacked 
by Indians who, of course, at that time were 
eager for the guns which all the halfbreeds pos¬ 
sessed. 
The appearance of these hunters now finish¬ 
ing up their day’s work by skinning and butcher¬ 
ing their animals was extraordinary. Covered 
with dust and sweat, black from the flying gun 
powder, bloody up to the elbows, their faces 
streaked and smeared with blood and grease as 
they brushed the long hair out of their faces, 
they presented an extraordinary spectacle of 
ferocity which their unfailing good nature and 
merry laughter and jest wholly belied. 
After the meat and hides had been brought 
into camp they were attended to by the women 
after the ordinary Indian fashion. The meat 
was cut into thin flakes and dried in the heat 
of the sun, or if the weather forbade this, hung 
up on scaffolds inside the lodges. The fat was 
saved and dried, the bones pounded up and 
boiled and the fat skimmed off and placed in 
bladders. 
When at last, the camp loaded with meat, the 
people turned about to return to the settlement, 
they took with them, if the hunt had been suc¬ 
cessful, from nine hundred to a thousand pounds 
of dried meat per cart, or in a case cited by 
Ross more than two hundred pounds of dried 
meat for every individual, young and old, in 
the settlement. Of this dried meat a portion was 
sold to the Hudson’s Bay Company at a rate of 
2 pence per pound, and in the year mentioned 
the hunters received £1,200 or $6,ooo, “being 
rather more money than all the agricultural 
classes obtained for their produce in the same 
year.” At this time the dressed robes had little 
value, save as clothing or a protection from the 
cold. They sold for about $2 each- 
The halfbreed of the middle of the last cen¬ 
tury was an excellent hunter, a splendid plains¬ 
man and able to support himself and his family 
on the prairie under the most adverse condi¬ 
tions, but he was a slow and reluctant husband¬ 
man. Coming of two races, one of which, 
though capable of long continued and most 
arduous effort and endurance of hardship, had 
never been accustomed to steady and continuous 
labor, he was willing to work until he dropped 
at occupations which he enjoyed, but not at all 
disposed to tasks he regarded as irksome. 
*It was between 1850 and 1870 that the Red 
River halfbreeds attained their greatest fame as 
buffalo hunters, but when in 1883 the buffalo dis¬ 
appeared, these hunters found their occupation 
gone and knew not to what to turn to gain a 
livelihood. No doubt the disappearance of the 
buffalo had much to do with the working up of 
the last Riel rebellion, and after that failed, the 
Red River halfbreeds as a camp ceased to exist. 
Many of ‘them fled over the border into the 
United States and remained there, some taking 
up ranches and becoming useful citizens, others 
traveling about from place to place with wagons 
which contained all their possessions, and from 
the ends of each of which protruded the family 
lodge poles. They camped wherever night found 
them, and lived as best they could. Others no 
doubt took up land in Canada, and being obliged 
to settle down and to remain in one place, be¬ 
came useful citizens of the Western Provinces 
of the Dominion. 
The Red River halfbreed has passed away 
forever. With his picturesque lodge, his com¬ 
plaining cart, his troop of dogs, his wife and 
daughters clad in silks stained with buffalo 
grease and soiled with the dust of the prairie, he 
remains but a memory and will never be seen 
again. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
The sad tale of the “Man, Dog and Bone” that 
appeared in Forest and Stream some weeks ago 
reminds Edward Breck of the one told by Sar- 
cey in his recollections of the siege of Paris. 
“This, if I remember rightly,” says Dr. Breck, 
“runs something like this: 
“Sarcey and his friends were accustomed to 
meet at each other’s houses for periodical ‘ban¬ 
quets.’ When Sarcey’s turn came he was at 
his wits’ end, for not only had the larder been 
empty for days, but the very last cat had been 
shot on the roof and not a mouse nor rat was 
left in the neighborhood in spite of the high re¬ 
wards offered. The day of the feast drew nigh 
and Sarcey became desperate. As the hour ap¬ 
proached, his condition was akin to insanity, and 
he was about to send word to his friends that 
for the first time in his life he was obliged to 
refuse them food in his own house, when he 
chanced to stumble against poor little Fido, his 
well-beloved terrier. A terrible thought entered 
his brain, but he put it away in horror. The 
next moment the haggard and reproachful faces 
of his dearest friends seemed to glare upon him 
from the grave. Hardening his heart and breath¬ 
ing a prayer for forgiveness, he drew his snick¬ 
ersnee and—well, to make a long story short, the 
banquet took place and the exultant guests vowed 
that so dainty a morsel had never been placed 
before them. Sarcey, however, ate in gloomy 
silence, and when the meal was over still sat 
gazing sadly at his plate. 
“‘Why so melancholy?’ asked a friend. 
“ ‘I*was only thinking,’ answered Sarcey, ‘how 
much poor Fido would have enjoyed those 
bones!’ ” 
^ sjc 
Believing in the efficacy of variety, a Califor¬ 
nia angler attracted attention on opening day for 
rainbow trout fishing in California, one of whose 
papers commented as follows: 
“Standing at the edge of one of the biggest 
pools in the West Fork, one angler was whip¬ 
ping the stream with a line from which dangled 
seven flies that were green, brown, red, yellow; 
enough color to paint a landscape, but still the 
trout wouldn’t strike. 
“ ‘Look at ’em,’ pleaded the eager angler to 
his wife. ‘Here, you take the rod.’ And wifey 
beat the face of that pool as if dusting the parlor 
carpet.” Grizzly King. 
