Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-25

who exterminAteu the last OF the vast
the guns with which he killed Is many
as 5000 bunalo in month.
BY GEORGE w. REIGHARD.
Special Dispatch to The star.
DODGE CITY, Kans., December rs
(N.A.N.A.).-I hesitate to tell folks
nowadays of the vast number Of buff
faloes 1 have seen drifting northward
in the Springtime on the plains of
Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Only
about so years have come and gone
since these prairieS were alive with
buffaloeS, and many 3 fortune and
many q substantial business and pros
porous farm of today was founded so
and 60 years ago upon the money that
came from buffalo hides and buffalo
bones.
came West in 1867, and for several
years drove a government team in the
reserve train for Gen. Custer and the
7th Cavalry, our route being from
Fort Hays to Fort Dodge, on the
Arkansas River, and ON South to Fort
Supply in Texas and back again. This
was through the very heart Of the
buffalo country.
One Herd IT'S Miles Long.
On one of our trips in the Spring
from Fort Hays southwark, We met
the advancing herd at Pawnee, so miles
south of Fort Hays, and from there
clear on to Fort Supply, ITS miles, we
Travelled through a continuous mass of
buffaloes grazing slowly northward
Often we would be stopped by q group
of few hundred that was so compact
1t blocked the way and we would wait
until it drifted past and lane opened
ahead of us.
It was impossible, of course, to count
the buffaloes in q herd, for the average
herd was spread over the earth far be-
yond the range Of vision.
william r. HornAday Of the Smith
sonian Institute came out here in the
plains in an early day and made q
study of the buffalo. He said that of
all quadrupedS that ever lived upon the
earth, no other species had marshaled
such innumerable hosts as those Of the
American bison, or, as we always called
it, the buffalo.
Steamboats, on the Upper Missouri
River were stopped, often for hours.
sometimes for days, by buffaloes swim
ming across in such densely gathered
masses that the boat could not push In
amongst them.
1 have ridden on trains on the Kan
sas Pacific Railroad west Of Fort Hays
that were stopped for hours by buffaloes
streaming across the track ahead.
When the road was first built out across
buffalo land. the engineers, meeting
herds like that, tried to force their
trains through them, but not even
locomotive could open a way, and after
several engines had been shunted on
the rails by the bodies of buffaloeS pill
ing up beneath the wheels, the engt-
neers abandoned the attempt to head
on a moving buffalo herd.
Stampede Of Hide Hunters.
Millions Of buffaloes were in this
broad pasture Of the plains In the late
Sos, when several circumstances, oc-
curing at about the same time, worked
together to wipe them out within 10
years.
The first was the invention Of the
breech-loading. long-range, heavy CALI
Der rifle, with which a man could creep
to within zoo or 300 yards Of the herd,
the rate of two bullets minute for as
long a time. as the herd was within
range. With these rapid-fire guns to
do the butchering. only two other con-
ditions were needed to seal the doom
of the buffaloes-a market Tor the
hides and a transportation system by
which those hides could 60 to the
market.
Curiously enough, both Of those con-
ditions were developed together; IN Gne
late Sos, when 1t was found that the
buffalo hide was better for machinery
betting than cowhide. There also arose
A great demand for buffalo robes over
All the world, and coincident with that
demand three railroads pushed their
tracks out into the heart Of the buffalo
country.
The stampede Of hide hunters that
poured into the buffalo range over those
three railroads was never equaled by
any other American migration, except
in9. perhaps, the rush Of gold hunters
to California in the late 40s. To become
A buffalo hunter required only nerve
and health enough TO 90 out and rough
1t and shoot, and capital enough to buy
a couple Of guns. To become buffalo
skinner required no capital at all, only
strength enough and a Willingness 70
work. Good wages could be made IN
both callings.
weather was UNIT for q robe; the mar
was too thin then. 1t was sent to be
made into leather. and on the Texas
prairie it brought from so to 80 cents
for q COW hide and UP to 81 Tor bun
Tide. Good robes came from buffaloes
killed in cold weather, and brought
from 81 TO %.
Swath Is Cut in Herds.
This influx of hunters soon moved
a swath through the center Of the herd,
and exterminatee all the buffaloes
within so miles Of the rail lines and
divided the one great herd into two
herds, one south Of the Santa Fe lines,
ranging in Texas and New Mexico ana
known thereafter as the southern
herd" and another, called the great
Northern herd" north Of the Union
Pacific tracks, mostly in the Dakotas,
Montana and wyoming.
In 1872, when went down into the
Texas Panhandle with a buffalo hunt
ing outfit, II was estimated the South
ern herd numbered 5000. 900 head. By
that time buffalo hunting had been de-
Veloped INTO an exact science.
Pity? No. I did not feel it. 1t was
business with me had my money
invested in that outfit; If did not
butcher the buffalces there were many
other hunting outfits ell around me that
would, 80 killed all I could. have
often heard of still hunters killing 100
and more In one stand. On that trip
I killed more than 1900 buffaloes in
one month. which was an average Of
about 100 day.
In the early 7OS we did not think
we were discriminating the herds. We
thought the 5000, coo buffaloes in the
Southern herd eanu0h with the natural