The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1921-12-08
CLIPPINGS
jim JAM JEMS BY jim JAM
HJNIOP

If a fellow dropped into your office
in this day and age and bluntly stated
that his mission was to invite you out
onto the plains to kill a wild buffalo,
you would think the fellow was either
lunatic or some Rip Van Wrinkle
who had been slumbering for decade
or two and hadn't been awake long
enough to realize that there 'ain't
no such animal any more. But that
Is where you would be dead wrong.
For just that very thing happened to
US in the month of December in the
year 192O-and we accepted the in
vitation, went and bagged huge buff
falo bull, and had one of those thrills
that comes only "once in a lifetime"
And we are going to use this months
preamble to recount our experiences.
But first let US give you a bit of in
tresting history. Just a few miles
from old Fort Pierre in South Dakota,
at the edge of the historic Black Hills,
is located the James (Scotty) Philip
ranch with its famous herd of wild
buffalo. Perhaps we shouldn't have
used the word famous" for it is not
generally known that this herd exists
and America has been unusually
tardy in recognizing the work of this
man who succeeded in saving to the
Dacotahs a herd of these 'Kings of
the Prairies" at time when our slug
gish government failed to act.
In the Saturday Evening Post of
December eleventh last, some name
less person used several pages of
space in an article on the American
bison under the caption "The Surviv-
Ors," and the writer gave Just FIVE
lines to the Philip herd thus: 'In
South Dakota the estate of James
Philip, according to the Bison Society,
still owns eight hundred and twenty
five buffalo, that herd having largely
increased on the open range in spite
of all threats to cut down its num-
bers." The unknown writer bases his
article almost entirely on the Yellow
stone Park herd of buffalo, and his
fve-line incidental mention of the
Philip herd is in keeping with the pub
hc;Cy and recognition given the late
"Scotty" Philip by the American
press, although he did more than the
government itself to save the Amer
lean bison.
Many years ago Scotty Philip
known from Mexico to Canada as
1.-THE Dakota Cattle King acquired
a range of twenty thousand acres in
the hills along the Missouri River
near Fort Pierre. It took a special
act of Congress to secure this i'm
mense range, but it was finally ac-
complished, and then Scotty stocked
his ranch with few head of buffalo.
When the Saturday Evening Post
writer said This herd has largely in
creased on the open range" he struck
the keynote in later day history of the
American bison. For it is here, along
the old Missouri River, in the brakes
and draws and on the rolling plains
that stretch toward the river from the
foothills, that the buffalo has thrived
and increased; here, IN his natural
habitat, free from any attempt to
domesticate him, the buffalo has main
tanned his ruggedness. his wariness,
his independence, and his instinct to
hills, where fresh water springs
abound and the long buffalo-grass
waves in luxuriant growth-there
the king buffalo leads his herd in
winter. In April and May, the big
black glossy-coated mother works heI
way down to the plains below, the IN
calmly calf at her side. In contrast tC
its mother the coat of the calf is as
fiery red as a stage-Inshman's hair
In 1919 the increase of this herd mum
bered nearly two hundred calves. AnC
1919 was a dry, lean year, but on the
plains the big herd stayed and the
young buffalo grew fat. They skinned
the short grass from the plains unit
a goat would starVe to death there
back in the hills where the SPRING
are, the long grass waved and beck
Oned, yet they chung to the plain unit
winter set in. Wise old buffalo! HI
knows what a winter on the DakOt;
prairie means, so he eonserves his fod
der where there is also shelter, and a
the winter closes in the herd comes to
gether and penetrates farther an,
farther into the deep brakes an
draws, and then in the spring com
the big black mothers with their fiery
red calves again.
When Scotty Philip died, some tel
as ago, the herd numbered NOR