Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1913-04-09
Hunters Stay Cow Running With
a Stockman'S Herd
Declared to Be the Last Wild Bison
of All the Millions That Once
Roamed at Will lin
South Dakota.

,Guthrie, Okla--''.Just about a year
ago my ranch partner, Phil Ellison,
helped kill the last range buffalo in
South Dakota" said Emmert Ander-
son, a sralwart former Oklahoman,
who came here to visit his parents.
Anderson and Ellison have a cattle
ranch at Rattlesnake Butte, and get
their mail at the little postoff1ce town
of Dupree, which is 100 miles north
east of Pierre.
This buffalo was d COW" said An
derson, and about fourteen years old,
She was full blood, and the last of
millions that once roamed that coun-
try. Her presence had been known
for a long time, and the cowboys pro
tected her For the last five or six
years she had kept with the herd of
a cattle man named Simon Lutz.
About IA years ago three wild buff
falo came from the north and were
seen on the Lutz range. One of the
COWS dropped a calf, and this cali
2hortly became the only wild buffalo
in that part of South Dakota, as its
mother and her two companions were
killed by hunters.
After this COW began going with the
Lutz kerd, she grew more or less ac-
quainted with Lutz, and would not
stampede when he came in sight.
though he WAS never able to get close
to her. The moment stranger ap-
cared however, the COW broke for
the hills and remained in hiding until
&c disappeared, but she could outrnn
the heetest horse, and nobody ever
succeeded in roping her.
About a year ago Chuck Hall,
butcher at Faith, S. D.; Ed Carr, and
Phil Ellison QUILTED and started after
the COW. They got sight o. her in
day or two, and gradually drew closer
to where she was grazing Carr
stalked her from behind hill when
the wind was 4vorable. Peering over
the ridge, Carr saw the COW not more
than a hundred yards distant. His
first shot merely wounded her, and
she charged viciously upon him.
second shot brought her down. Hall
has her head mounted in his butcher
shop at Faith.
ION this same hunt, and in the same
locality where the buffalo COW was
found, these hunters made another kill
that added a trophy to their expedi-
ton.
For nine years there had been an
outlaw steer of giant size ranging the
country. His color was solid white,
and he could be seen for miles on a
bright, sunshiny day. His horns were
Of phenomenal size and breadth. He
carried the brand of the old Turkey
Track ranch, once one of the most
widely known outfits in the west. and
whose headquarters were far down in
the Texas Panhandle, where the bat
tie between buffalo hunters and big
war party of Comanche Indians took
place in the early '70s.
The most persistent effort extend
ing through period of years failed to
get this old steer to the railroad when
cattle shipments were made. He would
drift in for miles. but seemed to have
a kind of uncanny intuition Of final
danger, and at night would sneak
away from the herd and return to his
old freedom. Usually a steer will stay
with the herd to the end.
Hall and his companions shot the
old fellow and his horns are hanging |
in the butcher shop at Faith. He had I
been a moving landmark for years in |
that part of South Dakota, and. like !
the buffalo COW, was perhaps the last
of his kind, as the old Turkey Track /
ranch is gone. and cattle no longer f
are brought up the trail from the Pan I
handle country to the north"