The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-02
IF HE HADN'T BEEN A CHUMP.
AN OLD RAILROADER's STORIES OF
THE DAYS OF BUFFALOES.
out West and the Fortune He Re-
fused in Payment of Poker Debt.
From the New York Sun.


fused in Payment of Poker Debt.
From the New York Sun.
When l came back from the west
some years ago." said a western railroad
man, now an engineer on the Eric.
among other things 1 brought with me
was a buffalo skin. l gave it to a brother
of mine up in Pennsylvania. 1 hadn' t
seen the skin since, and had forgotten
all about it, in fact, until a couple Of
weeks ago. when 1 was on a visit to my
brother. Then I was surprised to see not
only that he had the skin still, but also
that 1t looked a good deal better than it
did the day 1 gave it to him, and was
being cared for as e it was among the
most precious belongings of the family.
You don't seem to use the old buffalo
much" said l.
Use it, exclaimed my brother. Well.
hardly. We can't afford to chuck a $500
robe around as if it was a sheep pelt
Il began to laugh.
Fact" said my brother. Maybe you
hadn't thought of it, but there hasn' t
been a buffalo robe on the market for
pretty near fifteen years, and there never
will be one on the market again. You
remember when they were as common,
almost, as sheepskins. So do l. Well you
might rake the country over to-day with
f1ne-tooth comb and not find a single
one. Why? Because all that are in ex-
istence are held and cared for as curl
osities, TO be handed down as heirlooms
relics of a mighty race of beasts that once
made the earth tremble beneath their
tread, but of which there are not now
representatives enough left to kick a
board fence over Three hundred dollars
is the least offer l refused for this skin
of mine. It'll be worth more one of these
days. How much did it cost your
g Not a red cent! said /; and fell to
thinking about the way | got the buffalo
that shed that big skin. After he was
dead, the way we figured 1t out, there
were 1899 999 buffaloes left in the herd
he was travelling with. This was back in
1873. | was helping to build the Atchi-
SON. Topeka and Santa Fe railroad, and
we had got it as far as Dodge City, Kan,
or, rather, Dodge City had sprung up
around the spot we had got the railroad
built to. l was on the first construction
train that ran all the way to that place,
and on our way we were held up by this
herd of buffaloes. We had seen the long.
waving black line of that immense body
of huge beasts approaching the railroad
over the prairie from the north while
we were yet miles away from the section
of railroad where the herd would cross,
and the engineer made an effort to run
the train past before the buffaloes reach
ed it, but the track wasn't in condition
to let him get speed enough on TO do II.
loes struck the railroad only a hundred
yards or so ahead of us, and the engineer
ran down to within a rod or two OF the
herd and stopped. OF the buffaloes that
could see us. which were only those on
edge of the herd, but one seemed to mind
us any AS far as any one could see,
west and north, there was nothing but
buffaloes, packed together as they march
ed as close as sardines in a box. They
were travelling by a humpy sort of gait,
something between a walk and trot,
and were moving at the rate OF about
five miles an hour
1.-The one buffalo that gave us any par
ticular attention was a big bull near the
head of the column He stepped out of the
ranks when he got on the railroad, being
on the outside line and advancing a few
steps with his nose to the ground, began
paving dirt and snorting, and showing
every disposition to forcibly resist an in
trusion on that domain. AS the bull
stood there getting fercer and fiercer the
engineer pulled his whistle valve wide
open. Such wild, piercing, hair-raising
shrek as that locomotive let go had never
split the air in that far western country
before. 1t struck the big bull with such
terror that he threw himself back on his
hind feet so far that his great head and
shaggy name and ponderous shoulders
lowered straight above them in the air,
but only for an instant. Then he tOppled
over like falling tree and came down in
a heap across the track, making every
thing tremble. He was dead before he
fell, for he never moved a muscle as he
motive whistle had scared him to death.
No one seemed to care to bother with the
old fellow. 1 had his pelt taken off. A
man at Dodge City cured it for me, and
when l left there a couple of months la
ter l shipped it along with my goods and
gave 1t to my brother. That's the skin he
refuses $500 for now.
lone of our civil engineers made a. lit
tie calculation on the number of buffaloes
that herd contained. The herd was two
hours passing, which showed that it was
Ton ..
we stopped to let the herd go by to the
point its western edge extended was three
miles. The engineer figured in round num-
bers, and was liberal in his estimates. He
allowed 5000 buhaloeS as the depth of
the column and 5000 as it's width thus
showing that the herd contained 1906, 900
buffaloes. During the two hours that it
was passing us on its thunderous march
every one in our train amused himself by
shooting indiscriminatingly into the herd.
l suppose that many buffaloes were shot
wounded to be trampled to death beneat h
the feet of the mighty herd. When the
herd had crossed the railroad and at last
passed southwark on its way, not less than
800 mangled and mutilated carcasses were
left strewn about on the prairie the re-
suit of our ruthless butchery. We didn't
think 1t anything out of the way then. It
makes me sick to think of it now
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
railroad and the Kansas Pacific railroad.
which was building at the same time,
opened up that country to the buffalo
hunters. Wichita, Medicine Lodge and
Dodge City became centers for them More
than 5000 professional hunters were at
work in those regions in 1872, and the
pleasure hunters were about as numer-
GUS The railroads used to advertise buff
falo hunting excursions, and run special
trains to the feeding grounds, or as near
10 them as they could get. Hunters used
repeating rifles and needle guns. The
pleasure hunters or sportsmen. as thew
ealled themselves, despised the profess