Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1894-07-21
THE BUFFALO.
semi-Annual Migrations of the Vast Herds
 Upon the " Nesfern pIasns.

Upon the Western Plants.
 l was in the buffalo county as early as 62, and during the four following years l fraversed their ranges from southern Texas to the Gailatin river in Montana; and at that date I know the buffalo could only be found in certain localities at certain seasons. One sum- mer during that period crossed Texas, it's 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 q buffalo. All the eattlemen 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 few old bulis-never more than three or four in a abuneh-unmistal1ab stragglers like those in the wake of an army. I do not believe there was at that time q single buffalo in the state of Texas that was able to get out of it, and only a 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 it's grasses were to his taste far inferior to those of the north. The great herd crossed the Platte twice annually, go- ing north in the spring and south late fD11 4.,,, 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 were, 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 It will 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 contented 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 abun- dance; down every mountainside of that favored land tumbled 1 crystal streams of most refreshing soelness, where he could quench his l thirst and stand immersed for hours in the heat of the day, for although able to endure with impunity a climate of arctic rigor, he suffered greatly from l heat and insects. Here was his elysium, l the land of his birth; and it was only l when the deeply-drlfted snows 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 wayward feet, so the buffalo drifts southward. even to the land of the Aztec
 But he did not stay there. lie never forgot that he was but visitor in 2 strange land; and when the great white winding sheet of winter rolled away before the soft breezes oi early spring, and the tender grass springing into renewed life began t6 tint the long swells of the prairie, ther did he gather together his countless cohorts and sweep northward i'll ; mighty host to the sources of thos' great rivers that flow both eastwars and westward to the sea,
 These migrations were at that tim as clearly defined and as well under stood as are those of the wild geese and the old frontiersmen always Incy
 about where the herd was at any pal
 tionlar time, although large sections 2 the range were then overrun by hostil Indians who never hesitated to extel minate any party not sn Iieient fol