The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-08

North American continent, the musk OK
is without question the rarest and most
difficult to bring down. The grizzly
bear is a much priced trophy in the
scale of the big game hunter. but many
man has killed his grizzly The white
goat of the icy mountains is also COW
eted, and the big-horn ram can only
be secured by exercise of skill and
energy; yet the heads of these animals
are not infrequently seen in the nails
! of the weather sportsmen, or on the
| cabin walls of the mountain men. Even
! the buffalo, once so numerous, now SO
rare, may yet be classed as within
sporting possibilities, for there is at
| least one herd of wild buffalo left,
though not within the bounds of the
United States Every man has friends
who have killed buffalo, bear, moose,
| mountain sheep or mountain goats,
perhaps even the rare white sheep of
| Alaska Yet what man has a friend
| that ever killed a musk OK, or Who
] ever heard of man that killed or even
seen one? What menagerie ever dis
played musk OK. or in what geological
garden can one. be seen today?
A live musk OK would be worth
great deal of money. A few live musk
OK calves, brought safely out of the
! far north, from under the arctic circle,
| and delivered at any railway point on
| earth, would be worth little fortune
| to any man lucky enough to accomplish
this undertaking. Yet in all the years
| there has been no record of man bold
enough to entertain the thought as
[ possible, let alone as practical. 1t was
| left for an American, a westerner, a
plain man of the name of Jones, to not
| only conceive this idea, but to come so
near to it's actual completion that he
deserves the full credit of success.
FEW HUNTERS OF MUSK OXEN.
You may count upon the fingers Of
| one hand the men who have within the
| last fifty years made musk OK hunts
| in the far north Warburton Pike, an
| Englishman, spent a long time in the
sub-arctic region and shot a musk OK,
and wrote a book about his travels,
filled chiefly with talk about hunger
and something to eat. Mr.. Whitney, a
New York man, made a visit to the
barren lands and killed musk OK cow
and he also wrote a book, complaining
much about the hardships he encoun-
tered. Professor Russell an Iowa man,
a few years ago made a trip to the
Cooper river country and was so for
tunate as to kill and preserve several
fine specimens of the musk OK, which
are now the property of the Iowa state
university. But none of these men ap-
pears to have thought of trying to catch
a musk OK calf.
JONES PROJECTS A NEW FARM.
Buffalo" Jones not only went and
came back alive, but came back angry
because he was thwarted by the ma
tiyes after he had success within his
grasp. He killed, not one musk OK, but
nearly score, and he had for some
~, III +J,1 A11 nc,t md
valuable wild animals that any animal
taker ever had. He got his musk OK
calves and was bringing them out of
the country, in spite of the opposition
of the Hudson Bay company and the
hostility of the native tribes. Super
stition proved the final obstacle which
this man could not overcome. The In
dams superstitiously believe that if a
live musk OK is ever taken from that
country, all the other musk oxen will
follow it. They kill the captive calves
rather than see them leave alive. Thus
Buffalo Jones failed in his main pur-
pose. The story Of his trip is a re-
markable tale of personal adventure.
The other men who have gone into the
great barren grounds of, the Arctic re-
gion inhabited by these few scattered
remnants of a, unique species, have
done so under guides. Jones could get
no Indian to go. with him. He was
abandoned by his solitary guide as
soon as the latter discovered that he
was to help take live musk oxen. Then
he and John Rea, a Canadian, resolved
to go into the unknown Arctic region
alone. They did go alone, and Travelled
for hundreds of miles, with only what
wood they could draw with them on
their single-dog sledge. They went to
regions probably never touched by
white men before. They got their
calves and made a success of the dar-
ing undertaking until they met the
final enemy, superstition.
JONES IS a CHARACTER.
Buffalo" Jones is character He is
a Kansas man and believes in free sill
yer. He was an old-time skin hunter
and did his share toward cleaning out
the buffalo. Then he experienced re
morse and resolved to undo what he
had helped to do He undertook to
catch some live buffalo calves and to
, keep the race alive, at least in cap
) tivity. He caught in all 12O live buff
falos, old and young, and formed the
largest herd ever known of these ami
, mails. He trained and broke big buffalo
E bulls to harness. He, sold specimens to
the great parks of the English nobility
himself taking them to England Some
of the buffaloes went to the preserves
day.
, Buffalo" Jones bought up in Mani
toba the only herd of buffalo which
: could compare in size with his own
+ He had plenty of money in those days
j At one time he owned $50 quarter sec
lions in Kansas land. Then he built
: a big irrigation ditch in Nebraska. and
perhaps this hurt him somewhat. fol
it seems he parted with his buffalo, the
, herd being bought by half-bree6
i named Charlie AIlard, who lived on the
= Flathead reservation of Montana. The
l bulk of the old herd is out there still
; Then Jones got restless. He built g
/. railroad down in Texas, made some
money, and, being resolved to make
t that calf hunt in the Arcties, quietly
3 started on his trip, telling his wife and
family that he might be back home
l some day.
TRAVELLED 5000 MILES.
That was eighteen months ago. He
was gone longer than he had expected
He travelled more than 5000 miles, pass
ed a winter in the ArcticS, made the
trip to the Arctic ocean, passed many
hundreds of Klondike argonauts wh(
| We're ice-bound near the mouth of tn;
Mackenzie, came out into the Yukon
and, finding the Klondike too tame
f took ship from st. Michaels for Seattle
which port he reached Oct. 7. TIL,
cheerful Hudson bay people had sen
r home several reports of his death, bu
/ when he reached his family in Okla
homa he was not much the worse fo
wear, though bit more wrinlkled
Jones is 81 years old and entitled to
few wrinkles.
1t was a year ago last summer tina
: Jones left Edmonton, Alberta, the las
, railway point, and headed north. TIL
, Hudson Bay company had gave him M