Part 6

Like most other herbivorous animals, the buffalo was subject to panics, and was easily stampeded, and when thoroughly frightened, a herd ran for a long way before stopping. When alarmed, they huddled together as closely as possible, running in a dense mass. The result of this was that only the animals on the outskirts of the herd could see where they were going; those in the centre blindly followed their leaders and depended on them. This very fact was a source of danger, for the leaders, crowded upon by those that followed, even if they saw peril in front of them, could not stop, and often could not even turn aside, but were constantly forced on to a danger that they would gladly have avoided. This is the entirely simple explanation of a characteristic often wondered at by writers about this species; that is, their habit of running headlong into danger,--plunging over cut banks into the pens prepared for them by the Indians, or rushing into quicksands or places where they mired down, or into deep water, which might have well been avoided, or even up against such obstacles as a train of cars or a steamboat in the river. The simple fact is that the animals which saw the danger were unable to avoid it on account of the pressure from behind, and those that were pressing the leaders on were ignorant of the danger toward which they were rushing.

I have already adverted to the popular but erroneous belief that the buffalo performed extensive migrations in spring and fall. This is not true. There were, unquestionably, certain seasonal movements east and west, and north and south, yet these movements were never very extended, and constituted nothing more than the very general shiftings which are made by many ruminants between a summer and a winter range. Throughout the country lying between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri River, the buffalo, in summer, moved up close to the mountains and even into the foot-hills; and at the coming of winter, with its snows and its bitter winds, they moved to the eastward again, seeking the lower ground and such shelter as the ravines and buttes and timbered river valleys of the prairie might afford.

On the other hand, buffalo, in their journeys to water, usually travelled to the nearest streams, and as on the plains the streams usually run from west to east, and the buffalo travelled in single file, their trails ran at right angles to the course of the rivers, or north and south. It is quite possible that the directions of these trails, deeply worn, and showing the passage of great numbers of animals, may have given rise to the popular belief in this north and south migration.

At the same time, it is true that the buffalo herds were more or less constantly in motion. As they were very numerous, it was obviously essential that they should move constantly, to reach fresh grazing grounds. Often, too, they were disturbed by hunters, red or white, who stampeded the herds, which then rushed off in a close mass, perhaps not to stop for ten or a dozen miles. Besides that, frequently, the prairie was burned, so that they were deprived of food, and long journeys must be made to reach fresh grazing grounds.

Not very much is known, and very much less has been written concerning the tendency in animals, wild and domestic, to confine themselves to particular localities; yet all people who live much out of doors understand, even though they may not reason much about it, how very local in habit many birds and animals are. The ranchman, of course, knows that the horses and cattle which feed on his range divide themselves up into little bunches, each of which selects some special area where they spend all their time, rarely moving far from it, except to make journeys to water; or, at some change of the seasons, to migrate from summer to winter range or back again. In domestic stock this attachment to locality is strongly marked, and it is a common thing for animals that have been driven to a range hundreds of miles distant from that on which they have been accustomed to feed, to travel back toward their old haunts as soon as they are turned loose. I have known cases where one-third of a large bunch of horses, driven to a new range four or five hundred miles away, were a year later gathered again on their old home range. It is a matter of common experience for horses that escape from owners, travelling at a distance from the home range, to take the back trail and return to it.

Among our larger game animals a similar condition of things prevails. White-tail deer are greatly attached to particular localities, and when undisturbed, confine their wanderings within very narrow limits. Even if thoroughly frightened, and driven to a considerable distance, they soon return. If an old white-tail buck is run with dogs, he may make a long chase, and cover a wide stretch of country, but to-morrow he will probably be found in his old home. In the same way, mule deer, mountain sheep, white goats, and antelope show their attachment for localities, and unless persistently disturbed, wander but little.

The same thing is true with regard to non-migratory birds. Ruffed grouse attach themselves to certain pieces of woodland, or to particular swamps, and the birds may be found there all through the season. In like manner, quail establish themselves on certain small pieces of ground, and after their haunts have been learned, may be started there with unfailing regularity.

During many years’ experience with big game, I have often had these facts thrust on my attention, and have seen much to warrant the belief that, like other wild animals, the buffalo feels attachment for a particular range of country, which it does not desert except for good reason, or when the change from summer to winter, or back again, leads to a migration that may fairly be called seasonal. The buffalo’s attachment to locality, and its natural inertia, is well exemplified by an experience of Major G. W. H. Stouch, U.S.A., retired, a veteran soldier of more than thirty-five years’ experience on the plains, of which he told me many years ago. I give it as nearly as possible in his own words:--

“In the fall of 1866 I was directed to proceed with Company C, Third Infantry, to reëstablish old Fort Fletcher on the north fork of Big Creek, sixteen miles below the present Fort Hays, Kansas. When on October 16th we marched down to the site chosen, and went into camp, I noticed half a mile above us on the creek bottom a considerable herd of buffalo feeding; there were perhaps eight or nine hundred of them. As soon as I saw them, it occurred to me that I would leave them undisturbed, and that so long as they remained there they might furnish us a supply of beef at very little cost of time or trouble. I therefore ordered the men not to hunt up the creek, or disturb these buffalo in any way, instructing them to do all their hunting down the stream.

“In order to put my idea in practice at once, I detailed one of the soldiers as hunter and butcher of the company, and told him to go up the creek and kill a buffalo, but not to show himself either before or after firing the shot--merely to kill a fat cow and then to remain under cover until I joined him with a wagon. He did so. At the report of the rifle the buffalo fired at ran a few steps, and then lay down, while those nearest to it made a few jumps, looked around, saw no one, and then went on feeding. From the camp we were watching the result of the shot, and as soon as fired, I went with a wagon to bring in the meat. As the wagon approached the carcass, the nearest buffalo moved out of the way, without showing any special fear, and the wagon returned to camp with its load. This was repeated daily, the buffalo never being frightened either by the shot or the wagon, and seeming to become more tame as time went on, often approaching within a few hundred yards of where we were at work erecting the buildings.

“About November 1st, Troop E, Seventh Cavalry (under Lieutenant Wheelan) arrived to reinforce the post; and about November 19th Company B, Thirty-seventh Infantry (under Lieutenant Phelps) also arrived. I explained my plan of operation to these officers, and requested them to detail hunters from their companies, and to order their men to hunt down the creek, and not to disturb what I had come to regard as the post beef herd. They did so, and the herd still remained with us.

“One morning in February, ’67, a sergeant, whom I had sent the day before with a small detail to make a scout, rapped at my door, and reported his return. Among other things, he said: ‘Lieutenant, I met our buffalo herd travelling up the creek, about fifteen miles from here. They were moving slowly; just feeding along.’

“I determined to see if they could not be brought back, and taking twenty-five men (accompanied by Lieutenant Cooke, Third Infantry, Adjutant, Assistant-Surgeon Fisk, and Mr. Hale, the post trader) rode up the creek, and entered the valley above the herd. Then, forming a skirmish line across the bottom, we very slowly advanced toward the buffalo. When they first noticed us, the leaders seemed uncertain what to do; but as they had been accustomed to seeing large parties of us, instead of running, as I feared they might, they at length turned about and began slowly to work backward in the direction from which they had come. By nightfall the herd was on its old feeding ground, and there we left it, and there it remained until spring, and would, no doubt, have remained longer, but, unluckily, the Seventh Cavalry, under General Custer, rode in upon it, as they came down the creek to the post for supplies, after their unsuccessful chase after the Cheyennes, who had run away from General Hancock. General Custer detailed two troops with orders to secure meat for the command. After chasing it, and killing forty-four head, the herd was scattered, and never returned. The herd supplied the post (consisting of about three hundred officers and men) with fresh beef from October 16, 1866, until about April 20, 1867.”

The buffalo calf, when captured very young, was easily tamed. Indeed, nothing more was needed at times than to permit the calf to suck the fingers for a moment or two, when it would follow the rider into camp, and seemed to be wholly without fear of man. As already stated, when very young it is hidden by its mother, and, like the young of deer, elk, antelope, and other ruminants, it can then be captured, and makes no effort to escape. This, by many writers, has been denounced as stupidity and dulness. As a matter of fact, it is merely following out the protective instinct which is common to the young of many large mammals, at a time when they are without weapons for self-protection, and without strength or speed to save themselves by flight.

At various times during the last two hundred years, attempts have been made to domesticate the buffalo, and with entire success. But these attempts have never been continued long enough to be productive of any economic results. Nevertheless, buffalo were kept in captivity from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and toward the end of that century were actually domesticated, bred, and crossed with domestic cattle in Virginia, and somewhat later in Kentucky. The very full account given to Mr. Audubon by Mr. Robert Wycliff, of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1843, has often been quoted, and all the experiments since made have confirmed the conclusions then stated. It was proved, and is now well known, that the buffalo, in domestication, are easily handled, respect fences, and are but little more difficult to control than domestic cattle; that the male buffalo crosses readily with the domestic cow; that the progeny of the two species are fertile with either species and among themselves. It has also been demonstrated that the cross-bred animal is larger than either parent, and so makes a better beef animal. Besides, its hide yields a robe which, if not equal to that of the buffalo, is, at least, vastly superior to the hide of the ordinary beef. More important than either the beef or the robe, is the very greatly increased hardiness of the cross-bred animal, which enables it to endure extremes of cold and snow, which would destroy the ordinary domestic cattle.

From the days of Robert Wycliff, almost to the time when Mr. C. J. Jones, of Kansas, began experiments in breeding buffalo, little or nothing had been done in this direction. A few years earlier Mr. S. L. Bedson, of Stony Mountain, Manitoba, set to work at the same problem, and both men met with abundant measure of success. Both bred pure buffalo in considerable numbers, and both succeeded in breeding the buffalo with the domestic cow, and securing a progeny which was remarkable for size and for the robes produced. Indeed, Mr. Hornaday quotes Mr. Bedson as saying that the three-quarter bred animal produces “an extra good robe which will readily bring forty to fifty dollars in any market where there is a demand for robes.”

It is altogether possible that the time for establishing a race of buffalo cattle has past. The buffalo are extinct, and the number of animals in captivity to be drawn on, very small. Nevertheless, the great preponderance of bulls among these domesticated buffalo, makes it possible that something in this direction might be done, though the chances now are much against it.

The buffalo has often been broken to the yoke. Robert Wycliff says of this animal, “He walks more actively, and I think has more strength than an ox of the same weight. I have broken them to the yoke and found them capable of making excellent oxen; and for drawing wagons, carts, or other heavily laden vehicles on long journeys, they would, I think, be greatly preferable to the common ox.” Under the yoke, however, they are said to be somewhat difficult to control, and cases are cited where broken buffalo have, for various causes, run away, to the great detriment of the load they were hauling. In the year 1874 a settler on Trail Creek, in Montana, told me that he had a pair of bulls broken to the yoke, and declared that they would haul more than “any two yoke of cattle on the place.”

There is another reason besides the lack of buffalo for thinking that no systematic attempt to cross these animals with domestic cattle will ever be attempted. The days of free ranging, where the cattle are turned out on the prairie to look after themselves, winter and summer, are almost over, and year by year the area of the free range is becoming more and more contracted. The advantages of great size and a valuable robe would still be an attraction to the farmer; but the hardiness which enables the half-breed animal to endure almost any winter weather will soon cease to be required, because the cattle of almost all the western country will be kept under fence, and fed on hay during the winter.

From time immemorial the buffalo furnished food to the Indians, and with the coming into the land of the white man it supported him also. What the primitive method was by which the Indians hunted buffalo we do not know, but at the time the redmen became known to the whites, when they were footmen, the only method of securing this animal was by the surround, or by driving it into pens from which the buffalo could not escape, and where they were easily destroyed. Such pens were built at the foot of cut bluffs or low cliffs, over which the buffalo were driven; or, in the more open and flat country, where ravines with steep sides were not found, a long fenced causeway was often built, on which the buffalo were driven, and when reaching its end, the leaders, by reason of the pressure of those behind, were forced to jump into the pen, and the others followed, until all were captured. Often, if the drive was made over a high bluff, the fall killed many of the beasts, and even when this did not take place, many of the younger and weaker animals were destroyed by their fellows in the tremendous crush which took place within the pen.

No sooner did the buffalo find themselves confined, than they began to race about the enclosure, and the men standing on the logs which formed its sides, shot them with their stone-headed arrows as they ran by, until at length all had fallen.

The principle of the foot surround was not different from this. When a herd of buffalo was found, the Indians waited for a day when the wind did not blow, and then, creeping toward the buffalo, they surrounded them on all sides. When the line was fairly complete, one man would show himself, and perhaps frighten the buffalo by waving his robe at them. They would start to run, when the men stationed at the point of the circle toward which they were directing their course would show themselves, toss their robes in the air, and turn them in another direction. Thus, whichever way they ran, they found people standing before them, and soon they began to run around in a circle within the ring of men, and continued to do this until they became exhausted. Little by little the men drew closer together, making the circle smaller, and soon the buffalo were running near enough to them for them to be shot by their arrows.

It did not always happen that the hunt was successful. Sometimes in the pen a strong bull might find a place where no one was standing, and might leap over the barrier, or at least leap on it, throwing his whole weight against it. Very likely he would be followed by others, and perhaps a number would succeed in surmounting the wall; or they might even break it down, and then the whole herd would stream out of the pen and be lost. Sometimes, too, in the surround, especially if the herd of buffalo was large, it was found impossible to turn them, and they would break their way through the ring of men. In like manner, when, as sometimes happened, the Indians set up their lodges all about the herd, the buffalo might yet find a way to break through and escape.

If, however, all went well, and a good part of the herd was killed, there was great rejoicing all through the camp. Everybody was happy, since now, for some days, food would be abundant, and every one would have enough to eat; and there is nothing that the Indian dreads so much as hunger.

Later, after the Indians obtained horses and iron-pointed arrows, and, later still, repeating rifles, these old methods were all given up. It was easier to chase the buffalo on horseback, and their pack-horses gave them a ready means for bringing the spoils of the chase back to the camp. Now, too, they used the lance in hunting, driving the horse close up on the buffalo’s right side, holding the lance across the body, and, with a mighty two-handed thrust, sending the keen steel deep into the animal’s vitals.

Perhaps no more exciting scene could be witnessed than one of the old-time buffalo chases by the Indians. Naked themselves, they rode their naked horses, carrying their quivers of arrows on their backs or by their sides, and their bows in their hands. The good buffalo horses were swift of foot to catch the cow, admirably trained for running over the rough prairie, often dangerous from badger holes or burrows of the prairie dog, and knowing how to approach the buffalo, and also how to avoid its charge--trained, in fact, just as well as the cow-pony is trained, which knows exactly what is expected of him when he is cutting cattle out of a bunch. The chase was conducted in silence, and the only sound heard was the rumble of a thousand hoofs--dull where the ground was soft, and sharp if it hardened. If the herd was large, the scene was one of great confusion. Buffalo and horses with their riders were dimly seen amid the cloud of dust thrown up by the fleeing herd. Horses were constantly overtaking the buffalo, riders were bending down, horses were sheering off, buffalo were falling. The old bulls, passed by the swift riders, were turning off and fleeing, singly or in little groups, to right and to left, while the swifter cows, with heads down and tails in air, were pressing forward in flight to escape the Indians, who were riding with their rearmost ranks.

Not greatly differing from this, save that guns were used and there was much yelling and noise, were the hunts of the wild Red River half-breeds. These were pursued on horseback, and the men were armed with the old Hudson Bay smoothbore flint-lock guns. Powder was carried in a horn and balls in the mouth. When he had discharged his gun, the hunter poured the powder from the horn directly into the barrel, guessing at the quantity, slipped a ball from the mouth into the barrel, the gun was given a jar on the saddle to settle the load, a little priming was poured into the pan, and he was ready for another shot.

On such hunts the Red River half-breeds transported their families and their property almost entirely in the well-known Red River carts, each drawn by a single horse, and containing, besides a load of baggage, a woman and perhaps two or three children.

Besides these wholesale methods of taking buffalo, of course they were killed singly by men who crept close enough to them to drive even a stone-headed arrow deep enough into the sides to reach the life. Often, when the buffalo were in situations where it was impossible to approach them, men disguised as wolves crept in among the herd, and killed buffalo with their arrows. Catlin and others have described and figured this method of approach, which at the present day is traditional only among the Indians; yet an old friend, who died a few years ago, almost a hundred years old, has told me that he had many times killed buffalo in this way, either alone or in company with some Indian friend.

Indians and half-breeds alike preserved the flesh of the buffalo by drying it. The strips or wide flakes of meat were cut about one-quarter of an inch thick and hung on scaffolds exposed to sun and air. In a day or two the meat was thoroughly dried, when it was bent into proper lengths, and either tied in bundles or done up in parfleches. It was from this dried meat that the well-known pemmican was made. The dried meat was roasted over a fire of coals, and then broken up by pounding with sticks on a hide, or by pounding between two stones. This pulverized flesh was mixed with the melted fat of the buffalo, and after the whole mass had been thoroughly stirred, was packed in sacks made of buffalo skin, which were then sewed up with sinew, and as the mass gradually cooled the sack became hard, and would keep for a very long time.

The killing of buffalo, as described, was in no sense sport; instead, it was work of the hardest kind. The swift ride over the dry plains through the clouds of dust, the killing of the buffalo, and finally the cutting up of the animals was physical labor far harder than most of that performed by civilized man. Usually, the buffalo were killed far from water, and the severe work that the man had been doing and the summer heat made him very thirsty. It is not strange, then, that he slaked his thirst by devouring the liver, sprinkled with gall, or by eating raw the gelatinous nose of the buffalo.

The description of a butchering, given by Audubon in his “Missouri River Journal,” is very graphic, and is worth quoting here:--