Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/155



INCE there was no call for haste, the progress of the emigrant train sometimes ceased altogether. This was the case on the morning following the incident just related. The cause of the stoppage was to permit Shagbark to go a-hunting. They had entered a region some time before where game abounded, and his policy was to use as little of the reserve supplies as possible. The day was likely to come when they would have no other recourse. It was not practical to carry much fodder for the animals, but even that scant supply was hoarded against the inevitable “rainy day.”

Although the American bison or buffalo has been virtually extinct for years, the animals were numbered by the hundred thousand on the western plains at the time we have in mind. The droves seen in the distance seemed often to cover a fourth of the horizon, and 145