

FOREST AND STREAM. 
Jury 6, 1907.] 

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THE EDMONTON BUFFALO HERD 
By CHARLES AUBREY 
[The sale to the Canadian Government of the Pablo herd of buffalo; and its removal to the neighborhood 
of Edmonton, lends a peculiar interest to the foundation of this herd, which, under its owners—Michel Pablo 
and Charles Allard—became, after the extinction of the wild buffalo on the plains, the largest herd of buffalo in the 
United States. 
and has given details of the fact long known in northwestern Montana, that five or six calves were captured 
What 
was not known until Mr. Aubrey told the story, is that they were taken over as a peace offering, to pay for 
Mr. Charles Aubrey, still a resident of northern Montana, has written the history of this herd, 
and taken from the plains across the mountains to the Flathead country, by a Pend d’Oreille Indian. 
an infraction of the rules of the Christian Church by the Pend d’Oreille. Investigations made on the west 
Flathead 
in 1878, bringing with him five or six buffalo calves. He ranged his buffalo below the St. Ignatiys Mission, 
In 1882 or 1883, 
Sam. There were fourteen head. Sam lived on Crow Creek until 1886, and died that year, leaving a few head 
side of the mountains by Mr. J. B. Monroe, show that Sam, the Pend d’Oreille, returned to the 
between Crow and Post creeks. Michel Pablo and Charles Allard purchased these buffalo from 
of horses as his sole property. His widow afterward married a mixed blood named Alexander Findlay. She 
died in the year 1901. : i 
To this original herd was afterward added by purchase the remnant of the herd owned for years by C. J. 
Jones, formerly of Garden City, Kansas: 
The account of the origin of this herd deserves to be preserved as a permanent part of the history of this 
vanishing race. 
Mr. Aubrey has been a resident of what used to be called the Far West for many years, having crossed the 
Missouri in 1862—somewhat in advance, we believe, of the famous left wing of Price’s army. He followed up 
the old emigrant trail along the Platte River in. Nebraska, and gradually drifted further and further north, 
bringing up at last in Montana. There as prospector, miner, trader and ranchman, he lived for many years, and 
early became familiar with all the wild game and with all the wild people of that then unknown country. He 
has always felt an especial interest in the buffalo, and in past years he has called attention to the time when 
the pioneer settlers living in the northern part of Montana lost their entire crops through the ravages of the 
grasshoppers, and being without food, took their tents and went to the buffalo range, and lived on the buffalo 
through the winter, saving hides enough to enable them to buy seed «in the spring to plant their crops. On 
one occasion he made an effort to get together a herd of one hundred buffalo calves. Unfortunately, this effort 
was postponed a few years too long, for it was not made until the year 1883, at which time the buffalo were 
finally destroyed. ; 
During his long life on the plains, Mr. Aubrey has had much to do with Indians, and has come to understand 
them, and to know how to handle them better than most men can do. 
ful employe of the Government, in charge of a large body of Indians. 
Pablo herd was laid thirty years ago, is a very curious one.—Ep1Tor.] 
He was for some years a most success- 
His story of how the foundation of the 
In the year 1877 I was located at the Marias 
River and engaged in the Indian trade. 
A few miles above me, at Willow Rounds, 
Col. Culbertson, of the American Fur Company, 
had a winter trading post; below me a wander- j 
ing trader was located. 
This part of the river was a favorite winter 
hunting ground forthe Blackfeet. There was good 
grass and a variety of weeds for buffalo horses. 
The river bottom was well timbered, and 
furnished plenty of fuel and shelter. The high, 
level prairie to the north was a favorite winter 
range of the buffalo. The Marias was the main 
watering ground for all the game between it 
and Milk River, one hundred miles to the north- 
ward. 
Close by, and on the north side of the river, 
below me, was the great 
medicine rock of the Blackfeet. All war parties 
paid tribute to it as they passed. They placed 
articles of value upon it, and painted it, praying 
that they might be successful in war. The 
mothers of families here made offerings of valu- 
ables, with prayers to this medicine rock for the 
recovery of their children in case of sickness, or 
asked that the unborn child might be a man, 
Here, in the spring after the winter’s hunt was 
over, was the general point of gathering; here 
passed the summer route of travel. At that 
time the soldier lodge was held, and laws and 
rules laid down for governing the summer’s 
hunt, for friendly visits, and for war also; to 
protect their range and country from invasion 
by other tribes. 
way +o the hunting 
Cypress Hill far to the north. 
summer 
some three miles 

Here they journeyed on their 
ground in the 
The historian 
HOME OF THE 
of the future, when writing .of the Blackfeet, 
with an abler pen than mine, will find interesting 
material in this country 
There were three trading posts in this favor- 
ably located country. I’ was called by the 
Indians The Man in the Middle, for the reason 
My post 
J foreign dians gave 
All foreign Indians gay 
that I was between the other two. 
was called Ft. Custer. 
me the preference in trade, for the reason I 
gave them the same tail and trade I gave my 
own people. 
Among the Indians who traded with me that 
winter were the Sarcees and Stonies, from the 
far north; the Blackfeet proper, the Kootenais 
and Klamaths, from toward the Coast; the Nez 
Ventres, Pend 
d’Oreilles and one family of Crows. All tribes 
Percés, Gros Assinaboines, 
were in sympathy with each other, through the 
effects of the Nez Percé war. This was what 
brought these strange trade conditions about. I 
sold one Klamath twelve dozen buffalo tongues 

at $4 per dozen, as well as a number of 
fine . robes. In his there were no 
buffalo. 
Among the Pend d’Oreille Indians who made 
country 
up the hunting party from across the mountains, 
was an ambitious, bright, middle-aged man—ot 
the warrior class, but not a chief—whose Chris- 
tian name was Sam. He was known to the Black- 
feet as Short Coyote. 
d’Oreille, with the economical turn of those 
He was a typical Pend 
Indians as gathered from their early Christian 
instructors, Fathers De Smet and Ravalli. I 
often met Sam in the way of trade, and he in- 
dicated more than ordinary friendship for me, 
caused perhaps by my fairness in trade. My 
interpreter for the Blackfeet was a three-quarter 
blood Blackfoot, Baptiste Champaigne. His 

.ATE OLE BULL, 















































