The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-07-20
TIE BUFFALO.
seni-Annual Migrations of the Vast Herds
Upon the Western Plains.

semi-Annual Migrations of the Vast Herds
Upon the Western Plains.
was in the buffalo county as early
as 90, and during the four following
years / traversed their ranges from
southern Texas to the Gallatin river in
Montana; and at that date / know the
buffalo could only be found in certain
localities at certain seasons. One sum-
mer during that period l crossed Texas.
its entire breadth from the gulf to the
staked plain, and more than half its
/ length from north to south, and never
saw nor heard of buffalo. All the
cattlemen and rangers who were con-
stantly hunting cattle and ranging for
Indian horse-thieves over every portion
of the state, declared that they had
all gone north. Getting into the
Indian territory in the early fall we
found a few old bulls-never more than
three or four in bunch-unmistaka
stragglers like those in the wake of an
army. | do not believe there was at
that time single buffalo in the state
Of Texas that was able to get out of it,
and only few outcasts here and there
IN the territory, as we crossed it at a
point well supplied with grass and
water, and at distance from all the
Indian settlements.
Texas was, geographically speaking,
an ideal buffalo country, but the buff
falo is decidedly an epicure, and its
grasses were to his taste far inferior
to those of the north. The great herd
I r.
ing north in the spring and south late
IN the fall, but it never tarried there;
and of the thousands of immigrants
which passed along on both sides
OF the river at that early date
bound for Denver, Salt Lake, and
California, not one-half of them met
with single buffalo. The Republican
fork and the Smoky Hill river We're,
however, favorite winter ranges and
preferred by them to any portion of
Texas, for the quality of the grass on
those rivers was better than it was
either further south or along the
Platte. 1t viii perhaps be remembered
that while the Indians readily made
treaties permitting travel by wagons
and later by rail up the Platte, they
fought both propositions bitterly on
the Smoky Hill.
But the home par excellence of the
buffalo, the land where he was at rest
and away from which he was never
cortented to stay, was the valleys of
the Yellowstone and the upper Mis-
souri,. Here the sweet nutritious buff
falo grass, deprived of which he was
never happy, grew in greatest album
dance; down every mountainside
of that favored land tumbled
crystal streams of most refreshing
GOODNESS, where he could Quench his
thirst and stand immersed for hours in
the heat of the day, for although able
TO endure with impunitv climate of
arctic rigor, he suffered greatly from
heat and insects. Here was his elysium.
the land of his birth; and it was only
when the deeply-6rIfted SHOWS of win
ter deprived him of his sustenance that
he reluctantly turned his face to the
retreating sun; and as many another
wanderer who. having once cut loose
from the charmed circle of home. finds
finds no tie to bind his hayward feet,
so the buffalo drifts southwark, even
TO the land of the Aztec.
But he did not stay there. He never
forgot that he was but visitor in a
strange land; and when the great
white winding sheet of winter
rolled away before the soft breezes OF
early spring. and the tender grass
springing into renewed life began to
tint the long swells of the prairie, then
did he gather together his countless
cohorts and sweep northward in
mighty host to the sources of those
great rivers that flow both eastward
and westward 20 the sea.
These migrations were at that time
as clearly defined and as well under
stood as are those Of the wild geese:
and the old frontierSmen always knew
a bout where the herd was al any par
ticular time. although large sections Of
the range were then Overrun by hostile
Indians who never hesitated to exte--
inmate any party not sufficiently for
midable 10 make the success of an at
tack predetermined. - Forest and
Stream.