Catching Buffalo Calves 
In Two Parts—I. 
A Spring Ski Trip in Yellowstone Park—The 
Only Wild Buffalo in the United States 
By PETER HOLTE 
O F the tourists who visit the Yellowstone 
Park during the summer months, a ma¬ 
jority see only a few of the many species 
of wild animals that have made this park famous. 
Entering the Park from Gardiner on the north, 
antelope are seen on the alfalfa field just inside 
the north line; deer may occur anywhere along 
the road, while bears form a part of the natural 
scenery, are always to be found at the garbage 
piles near the hotels and lunch stations, and pri¬ 
vate camping parties frequently find them on 
their wagons overhauling the grub boxes. A few 
tourists are fortunate enough to see elk and 
mountain sheep, but by the time the Park is open 
to sightseers, these have usually taken to the 
mountains and heavy timber. 
Few visitors realize how many wild animals 
make this wonderland their home, how severe 
is the struggle for existence during the long 
winter and deep snows or how great are the 
hardships and sufferings of the men whose duty 
it is to protect the wild creatures against preda¬ 
tory man. All that can be done to ease their 
lot during the winter is to scatter hay, usually 
alfalfa, in places where they may feed unmo¬ 
lested, and this is helpful only to those tamer 
species—deer, antelope and mountain sheep—that 
are willing to spend the winter months near 
man’s abode. 
Naturally the greatest interest attaches to the 
small band of wild buffalo, the only wild herd to 
be found in the United States. 
THE WILD BUFFALO HERD. 
All that is left of the once mighty herds that 
roamed the plains are perhaps twenty-five, which 
have taken refuge in the wildest and most inac¬ 
cessible part of the Rocky Mountains set aside as 
a national park. They are so extremely shy that 
they can only be seen in winter, and only by those 
able to penetrate to their mountain fastness on 
skis. In the summer they seldom venture out of 
the heavy timber. To get near enough to count 
them is impossible. I have trailed them carefully 
in the timber and have known that I was close 
to at least fifteen of them, but saw only two 
rolling in the sand and dust exactly as a horse 
would roll. No sooner had we sighted them than 
they jumped to their feet, faced us for a moment, 
plunged into the timber and were gone. 
In winter I have frequently watched them 
through field glasses when they appeared like 
black dots on the vast expanse of snow. If the 
wind swung around and blew from us to them, 
they would start back frantically over their 
broken trail. I was once caught, with a com¬ 
panion, in such a predicament—but that is an¬ 
other story. 
I have seen their trail made during the night, 
lead up to a snowshoe trail made the day before 
and stop there. Not one of them would cross it, 
and their plunges in the snow showed with what 
haste they had departed from this sign of man. 
It may thus be seen how difficult it is to keep any 
track of these animals—to learn their exact num¬ 
ber and what the increase or decrease has been- 
during the year. Efforts to learn about them 
can be made successfully only during the winter, 
when the great depth of snow prevents them 
from leaving the country, and they are confined 
to a limited area. 
To capture this entire band has been the dream 
of more than one enthusiast, but all attempts 
have failed. Several years ago, a large corral, 
one mile square, was erected in Flayden Valley, 
but it was built in vain. With a strange per¬ 
versity the buffalo ceased, after the erection of 
this corral, to make the Hayden Valley their 
winter stamping ground. 
Another attempt was made by C. J. Jones, then 
in charge of the fenced herd of buffalo in the 
Park. At a point on Pelican Creek, where the 
buffalo in their travels usually passed up and 
down this stream, he built a smaller corral. A 
large stack of hay was placed in the corral and 
one of the domesticated buffalo bulls was hauled 
out in a wagon to act as decoy. This scheme also 
failed. The wild herd passed close to the corral, 
but would have nothing to do with the decoy. 
Trails showed that he had left the corral and 
gone half a mile to visit them, but he had evi¬ 
dently met a cool reception, as he had returned 
to his lonely life in the corral. 
In the spring, when the snow had gone, this 
bull left the corral. He was seen several times 
during the summer along the Cody road, where 
he frightened several teams. The following 
winter he starved to death, his carcass having 
been found on the ice of the Yellowstone Lake. 
The great depth of snow in the timber surround¬ 
ing the lake had forced him down to the ice, 
and his pawing and nosing around in the snow 
covering the ice showed the hopeless struggle he 
had made for life. This buffalo could have been 
saved by closing the gate of the corral before 
the snow fell. 
The superior strength, endurance and stamina 
of the wild buffalo made it desirable to obtain 
some of this strain of blood for the fenced herd. 
If full grown ones could not be captured, the 
calves might offer some chance for success. The 
difficulty of the problem was obvious, the time of 
the year when they have their young being between 
the first and middle of Mat r , the hardest time for 
travel. The snow is still too deep for a horse, 
and the warm sun so weakens the snow crust 
that it will not bear up a man, even on skis. All 
traveling must be done before nine o'clock in the 
morning. Would the buffalo give up their young 
without a fight, in which men handicapped by 
skis tied on their feet would certainly get the 
worst of it? These were questions that could be 
answered only by actual experience. 
The almost constant fall of snow in the Park 
during the winter months makes it extremely 
hard shoeing at all times. The traveler sinks to 
his knees in the loose snow, and of this snow a 
great deal falls in upon the skis, making heavy 
dragging indeed. The method of procedure is 
then to frequently change the men who are 
breaking trail. The man ahead goes as far as he 
can, often not more than three or four hundred 
yards, and, dripping with perspiration, steps to 
one side, allowing all the party to pass. He then 
becomes the rear man and has a broken trail in 
which to travel. Even at thirty or forty degrees 
below zero, the head man travels in his shirt 
sleeves and is bathed in sweat, but when travel¬ 
ing in the broken trail behind, where the going is 
much easier, coat or sweater must be put on again. 
On the 5th of May, 1903, C. J. Jones, James J. 
Morrison, the scout, and I left Fort Yellowstone 
for the buffalo country. It was a dark, cold 
morning. A buckboard was to take us to the 
Golden Gate, saving us an uphill climb of about 
eight hundred feet in three and one-half miles, 
but before we got half way there we were caught 
in a snow drift, and after much hard work, got 
the mules and buckboard out and started them 
for home. We then strapped on our skis, put on 
our packs and started for Crystal Spring Cabin, 
our camping ground. 
The sun rose in a clear sky and the scenery 
from Swan Lake flat was most beautiful. Soon; 
however, the heat of the sun began to affect the 
snow, and it became moist and stuck to the bot¬ 
tom of the skis. Under such conditions skiing 
is a most severe physical strain. The eight and 
one-half foot skis pick up snow their full length, 
more accumulating at every step, until the weight 
becomes so great that the legs seem to threaten 
