Aug. 7 , i9°9-] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
213 
The Outlaw Buffalo. 
In Forest and Stream, of July io, we told 
^something about the difficulties of capturing 
and loading the last of the buffalo sold by 
Michel Pablo to the Canadian Government, and 
pointed out then that there were from 150 to 
200 head of buffalo that were absolute outlaws 
and could not be controlled. Since then we 
have received some details of the handling of 
these animals in the first days of July and give 
an exchange’s account of the way in which some 
of these enraged bulls fought and the damage 
:hat they did: 
, “Charged by an infuriated buffalo, his horse 
gored under him, injured himself and pinned to 
;he ground beneath buffalo and horse, Johnnie 
Deckers had another narrow escape from death 
it the Ronan buffalo corral Tuesday afternoon. 
The horse was ripped and torn by the maddened 
oeast’s horns and Decker received severe though 
lot serious lacerations and bruises. But for the 
.act that Michel Pablo and Fred Decker saw 
he precarious position of the injured man and 
Irove the fighting buffalo from his victim by 
iring revolver shots into his neck, both horse 
md rider would undoubtedly have been gored 
0 death by the beast. With a dozen bullets in 
lis neck, the bull sprang over his victims, 
harged through the corral and made his escape 
0 the range. Another bull demolished a cage 
ifter being loaded and succeeded in making 
pis escape. 
“Deckers’ thrilling experience occurred just 
)efore sun-down Tuesday afternoon. Six of 
jhe eight bulls that remained to be loaded into 
rates for transportation to the loading corral 
:-t Ravalli had been successfully caged, and but 
.wo—the most unruly and wildest of the herd— 
emained in the corral. Six riders, headed by 
Michel Pablo, the owner of the herd, mounted 
tpon the finest of Pablo’s horses, strove in vain 
or an hour or more to drive the stubborn affi¬ 
nals into the chute leading to the crates. The 
yily beasts refused to enter the chutes and, as 
he riders redoubled their efforts to force them 
n, began to manifest a disposition to fight. As 
larkness was coming on and delay in loading 
neant delay in shipment at Ravalli, the riders 
'ecame more reckless and pressed the buffalo 
losely. 
“Goaded to madness by continued teasing of 
he riders, both beasts turned upon the horse- 
nen and charged. The riders took refuge in 
light and for the next few minutes the race be- 
ween buffalo and horses was thrilling. 
“With lowered heads, dilated nostrils and roll- 
ng eyes, the beasts rushed in blind fury toward 
he horsemen. Around and around the corral 
ode the men in their race for life. Watching 
heir opportunity, the riders wheeled suddenly 
nd eluded the buffalo, which continued in their 
find rush until they brought up against the side 
•f the corral. 
“Decker, who is known as a fearless rider, 
enewed his efforts to drive the beasts into the 
wading chute. One of the animals charged 
pecker’s horse. The rider was unable to get 
iis steed out of the way in time and the bull 
aught him full in the side. Horse and rider 
•’ent to the ground, the rider being pinned under 
is mount. With his sharp, stubby horns the 
ull was ripping the horse when Pablo and Fred 
decker, a brother of the bull’s victim, drew their 
revolvers and began firing bullets into the buf¬ 
falo’s neck. The sting of the leaden missiles 
forced the beast to jump over his victims and 
burst out of the corral. He made his escape 
to the outside range and soon disappeared. 
Decker, though lacerated and bruised, mounted 
a horse and returned to the work of caging 
the other buffalo. 
“This, the last animal in the corral, was 
finally driven into the hauling cage and securely 
bound there with ropes. But when the riders 
AN ALASKAN GIRL AND THE SKIN OF A SILVER FOX 
TRAPPED BY HER. 
rolled from their blankets yesterday morning 
they found the cage in splinters and the buf¬ 
falo out in the corral. He was roped, but snap¬ 
ped the lariat as though it were thread and 
showed such a spirit of fight that it was finally 
decided to make no further attempt to load him. 
“The six animals loaded were hauled to 
Ravalli, where they were delivered in the load¬ 
ing corral at 3 130 p. m. These and a few others 
were then loaded into the railway cars. At 
6:45 the buffalo extra, in charge of conductor 
Leek and engineer McCann, pulled out of 
Ravalli over the Northern Pacific tracks on the 
trip to the Banff National Park in Alberta. 
There were fifteen cars, carrying 190 buffalo. 
A trip of about 1,200 miles must be made by 
this train before the bison are finally unloaded 
at the Canadian park. 
“This marks the end of the roundup and ship¬ 
ment of buffalo from the reservation for the 
present. T he work will be resumed in Septem¬ 
ber, when riders will endeavor to corral about 
150 outlaws that yet remain to be shipped to 
completely fill the order of the Canadian Gov¬ 
ernment. These animals are the wildest of the 
entire herd and considerable trouble is antici¬ 
pated when the riders undertake to corral them. 
Since the work of rounding up has been in prog¬ 
ress these outlaws have strayed far from their 
regular range, but it is reported now that they 
are beginning to move back toward their old 
feeding ground.” 
Coat of the Silver Fox. 
Copper Center, Alaska, April 28. — Editor For¬ 
est and Stream: There is no subject in natural 
history that has caused so much confusion in 
the minds of readers and students as the state¬ 
ments met with almost daily concerning the sil¬ 
ver fox. Even among naturalists who ought at 
least to be^ conservative in their description of 
animals, the amount of ignorance displayed is 
alarming, and when it comes to the question of 
the status of the silver fox in the classification 
of the genus Vulpes, there are almost as many 
theories as there are silver foxes. 
I have before me an article clipped from 
Country Life in America, April, 1906, written 
by so eminent a writer and authority as Ernest 
Thompson Seton, in which he says: “The ideal 
and inimitable silver fox is glossy jet black 
with a silvery tip to each of the long hairs, 
giving a frosted finish of exquisite beauty.” I 
also have before me Bulletin No. 328, Silver 
Fox Farming, 1908, by Wilfred H. Osgood. 
This is a publication of the Biological Survey. 
In even so simple a matter as describing the 
color of the silver fox the writer falls into 
the common error in the following statement, 
page 6: “The entire pelage being dark at the 
base and heavily or lightly overlain with grayish 
white.” Again, on the same page, “white-tipped 
hairs” are mentioned. 
Now, as a matter of fact, there are no white- 
tipped hairs (either guard-hair or under fur) 
on either cross or silver foxes. The silver or 
grizzled effect is produced by a band of white 
underneath the very dark (usually black) tip 
of the hairs. In the lower grades of silver 
foxes this band or bar may be a rusty white 
or orange color. From this band to the skin 
the color of the hairs and fur is a dilute black 
in all the dark phases and even in the red. The 
idea I wish to convey is that there are no white- 
tipped hairs on silver foxes. The tuft of hair 
on the end of the tail is almost invariably white, 
but in such cases the entire hair is white. The 
general plan of coloration of each individual 
hair holds good in all the dark phases except 
that in some cases the white band or bar is 
entirely missing. Chas. W. H. Heideman. 
The Eagle in Falconry. 
Apropos of a recent mention in Forest and 
Stream of “The Eagle in Falconry,” it is to be 
noted that the Vienna Halali, a journal of hunt¬ 
ing and fishing, in its issue for June, prints a 
picture of the falconers of the Emir of Bokhara. 
Three of these officials are shown, two of them 
holding on their wrists eagles, the other a 
smaller falcon. The Emir owns a hundred 
falcons. 
