Page:The Extermination of the American Bison.djvu/136

 Colonel Dodge once counted one hundred and twelve carcasses of buffalo "inside of a semicircle of 200 yards radius, all of which were killed by one man from the same spot, and in less than three-quarters of an hour."

The "kill" being completed, the hunter then addressed himself to the task of skinning his victims. The northern hunters were seldom guilty of the reckless carelessness and lack of enterprise in the treatment of robes which at one time was so prominent a feature of work on the southern range. By the time white men began to hunt for robes on the northern range, buffalo were becoming comparatively scarce, and robes were worth from $2 to $4 each. The fur-buyers had taught the hunters, with the potent argument of hard cash, that a robe carefully and neatly taken off, stretched, and kept reasonably free from blood and dirt, was worth more money in the market than one taken off in a slovenly manner, and contrary to the nicer demands of the trade. After 1880, buffalo on the northern range were skinned with considerable care, and amongst the robe-hunters not one was allowed to become a loss when it was possible to prevent it. Every full-sized cor robe was considered equal to $3.50 in hard cash, and treated accordingly. The hunter, or skinner, always stretched every robe out on the ground to its fullest extent while it was yet warm, and cut the initials of his employer in the thin subcutaneous muscle which always adhered to the inside of the skin. A warm skin is very elastic, and when stretched upon the ground the hair holds it in shape until it either dries or freezes, and so retains its full size. On the northern range skins were so valuable that many a dispute arose between rival outfits over the ownership of a dead buffalo, some of which produced serious results.

2. The chase on horseback or "running buffalo." — "Next to the still-hunt the method called "running buffalo" was the most fatal to the race, and the one most universally practiced. To all hunters, save greedy white men, the chase on horseback yielded spoil sufficient for every need, and it also furnished sport of a superior kind — manly, exhilarating, and well spiced with danger. Even the horses shared the excitement and eager. ness of their riders.

So long as the weapons of the Indian consisted only of the bow and arrow and the spear, he was obliged to kill at close quarters or not at all. And even when fire-arms were first placed in his hands their caliber was so small, the charge so light, and the Indian himself so poor a marksman at long range, that his best course was still to gallop along. side the herd on his favorite "buffalo horse" and kill at the shortest possible gauge. From all accounts, the Red River half-breeds, who hunted almost exclusively with fire-arms, never dreamed of the deadly still hunt, but always killed their game by "running" it.

In former times even the white men of the plains did the most of their buffalo hunting on horseback, using the largest-sized Colt's revolver, sometimes one in each hand, until the repeating-rifle made its