The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-06-30

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whom have talked say that five years
will finish the business. The facility
with which outfits can be procured and
the feeding grounds reached from the
new railroad towns and the compare
lively cheapness of transportation for
the hides to Eastern markets has caused
a great increase in the ranks of the men
who make buffalo-killing trade during
the winter months. Large numbers Of
the animals are killed by the Sioux.
Cheyennes, Crows, and other Indian
tribes, but the greatest destruction is
by the skillful white men. who 90 at
the work in an intelligent, SYSTEM
attic way for all the money there is
in it.
The Indians kill the year round for
meat, but the white hunters only 60 out
in the winter, when the hides have
fur-like quality ard can be converted
into buffalo robes. A skin taken in the
summer is only good for leather. A
buffalo hunting outfit usually consists of
one or two hunters, two SINNERS to each
hunter, two or three teams and wagons,
q cook, and stock of ammunition and
provisions. One man, usually a prac-
| SiSdA AuAICI, O"u CAC ouGlU anu DAYS
the other men a monthly salary. Ar
rived upon the range a dug-out is con-
structed by cuttiny an opening in side
hill, rooming it with hides or with
boughs and dirt. This is the home of
the party. A sheet-iron stove or fire.
place of stones and mud warns the
burrow and hide serves for door.
The hunters scour the country on tkeir
horses for signs of the proximity of
herd. When they discover such signs
they do not gallop on, find the herd,
dash among them and kill right and
left. That is the way buffalo hunting is
done in the pictures in the school geog-
raphies, and it is the way the Indians
who are after meat often hunt. The
white man is too smart. He wants to
kill as many animals as possible with
out stampeding the herd. First he
caches his horse, 'concealing him in
a coolie' or gully-Cthe right word is
the French coulee, but Western usage
has corrupted it to COOLEY. If the buffa-
loes should get wind of the horse they
would take the alarm and make Off
The hunter then cautiously gets around
to leeward of the herd, "getting their
wind" as he says. Then he approaches
very slowly, crawling over the ground
and lodging behind hummocks to es-
cape their notice. If they see him he
lies perfectly still in the grass, which his
brown canvas clothing resembles closely
in color. Seeing nothing move the wary
animals soon think they were mistaken
in suspecting the presence of an enemy
and go on grazing.
The hunter crawls up little closer
and so works forward until he gets a
good position, in depression in the
ground or behind little rise, for shoot
ing. Then he watches the herd for
few minutes, to learn which animal is
the leader. Every herd. large or small,
has a captain, who directs its move
ments and to whom all turn for guidance
in moments of danger. The hunter
must first kill the leader or he will
probably not get more than one or two
skins out of the herd. When the buff
falo boss is laid low the other animals
gather around him in confusion and
amazement, undecided what to do.
Another and another fall under the
hunters steady aim. The herd is terror
stricken. Some of the holder animals
break away from the group and look
around from whence the danger comes,
but the hunter lies low and ceases firing
until they return to their dying COM
panions. Then he fires away rapidly. |
perhaps getting in a dozen effective
shots before the huddle of animals |
breaks up and the beasts begin to run
to and fro in fury of rage and fear. Be-
fore they find new leader and |
stampede from the fatal spot he proba-
bly, ''down'' twenty or thirty of them
He rides back to camp to bring up the
wagons and the SINNERS, takes note
of the direction the herd has pursued,
and the next day is on their track again.
1t is not uncommon for single hunter
to kill 500 buffalo in few weeks. One
can see what devastation few hunting
parties will make in single month
among the few remaining herds.
The Indians method of killing buffalo
is much more exciting and spectacular,
but much less destructive. A civil en-
gineer engaged in the railroad construc-
ton work. at whose camp l stopped a
few nights ago, gave me an account of
an Indian hunt he witnessed from the
door of his own log cabin one day last
winter. 1t was the great annual hunt
of the Crows. The Indians h ad had
their scouts. out for weeks in the region
north of the Yellowstone, massing the
small scattered herds into one large
body, by method similar to that used
in rounding up cattle. Having got to-
gether herd of perhaps five thousand.
they began to push them slowly towards
the Yellowstone Valley, not stampeding
the animals, but forming a semi-circles
of horsemen around nearly twenty miles
of country and showing themselves here
and there to keep the animals from
straying off and move them forward in
the desired direction. Couriers were
sent to the Grow village, and soon the
whole tribe was in motion for a small
piece of bottom land on the river half
surrounded by an amphitheater of hills.
Beyond the hill-tops the squaws. chill
dren and old men were stationed, with
some of the ponies and with red blank
cts. The most skillful hunters posted
themselves, mounted, by the river side.
About noon the great herd, urged on by
the scouts, came laundering down the