Extermination of the American Bison — Part I Chapter 5: The Habits of the Buffalo, continued

It was a fixed habit with the great buffalo herds to move southward from 200 to 400 miles at the approach of winter.

Sometimes this movement was accomplished quietly and without any excitement, but at other times it was done with a rush, in which considerable distances would be gone over on the double quick.

The advance of a herd was often very much like that of a big army, in a straggling line, from four to ten animals abreast.

Sometimes the herd moved forward in a dense mass, and in consequence often came to grief in quicksands, alkali bogs, muddy crossings, and on treacherous ice.

In such places thousands of buffaloes lost their lives, through those in the lead being forced into danger by pressure of the mass coming behind.

In this manner, in the summer of 1867, over two thousand buffaloes, out of a herd of about four thousand, lost their lives in the quicksands of the Platte River, near Plum Creek, while attempting to cross.

One winter, a herd of nearly a hundred buffaloes attempted to cross a lake called Lac-qui-parle, in Minnesota, upon the ice, which gave way, and drowned the entire herd.

During the days of the buffalo it was a common thing for voyagers on the Missouri River to see buffaloes hopelessly mired in the quicksands or mud along the shore, either dead or dying, and to find their dead bodies floating down the river, or lodged on the upper ends of the islands and sand-bars.

Such accidents as these: it may be repeated, were due to the great number of animals and the momentum of the moving mass.

The forced marches of the great herds were like the flight of a routed army, in which helpless individuals were thrust into mortal peril by the irresistible force of the mass coming behind, which rushes blindly on after their leaders.

In this way it was possible to decoy a herd toward a precipice and cause it to plunge over en masse, the leaders being thrust over by their followers, and all the rest following of their own free will, like the sheep who cheerfully leaped, one after another, through a hole in the side of a high bridge because their bell-wether did so.

But it is not to be understood that the movement of a great herd, because it was made on a run, necessarily partook of the nature of a stampede in which a herd sweeps forward in a body.

The most graphic account that I ever obtained of facts bearing on this point was furnished by Mr. James McNaney, drawn from his experience on the northern buffalo range in 1882. His party reached the range (on Beaver Creek, about 100 miles south of Glendive) about the middle of November, and found buffaloes already there; in fact they had begun to arrive from the north as early as the middle of October.

About the first of December an immense herd arrived from the north.

It reached their vicinity one night, about 10 o'clock, in a mass that seemed to spread everywhere.

As the hunters sat in their tents, loading cartridges and cleaning their rifles, a low rumble was heard, which gradually increased to "a thundering noise," and some one exclaimed, "There!

that's a big herd of buffalo coming in!"

All ran out immediately, and hallooed and discharged rifles to keep the buffaloes from running over their tents.

Fortunately, the horses were picketed some distance away in a grassy coulée, which the buffaloes did not enter.

The herd came at a jog trot, and moved quite rapidly.

"In the morning the whole country was black with buffalo."

It was estimated that 10,000 head were in sight.

One immense detachment went down on to a "flat" and laid down.

There it remained quietly, enjoying a long rest, for about ten days.

It gradually broke up into small bands, which strolled off in various directions looking for food, and which the hunters quietly attacked.

A still more striking event occurred about Christmas time at the same place.

For a few days the neighborhood of McNaney's camp had been entirely deserted by buffaloes, not even one remaining.

But one morning about daybreak a great herd which was traveling south began to pass their camp.

A long line of moving forms was seen advancing rapidly from the northwest, coming in the direction of the hunters' camp.

It disappeared in the creek valley for a few moments, and presently the leaders suddenly came in sight again at the top of "a rise" a few hundred yards away, and came down the intervening slope at full speed, within 50 yards of the two tents.

After them came a living stream of followers, all going at a gallop, described by the observer as "a long lope," from four to ten buffaloes abreast.

Sometimes there would be a break in the column of a minute's duration, then more buffaloes would appear at the brow of the hill, and the column went rushing by as before.

The calves ran with their mothers, and the young stock got over the ground with much less exertion than the older animals.

For about four hours, or until past 11 o'clock, did this column of buffaloes gallop past the camp over a course no wider than a village street.

Three miles away toward the south the long dark line of bobbing humps and hind quarters wound to the right between two hills and disappeared.

True to their instincts, the hunters promptly brought out their rifles, and began to fire at the buffaloes as they ran.

A furious fusilade was kept up from the very doors of the tents, and from first to last over fifty buffaloes were killed.

Some fell headlong the instant they were hit, but the greater number ran on until their mortal wounds compelled them to halt, draw off a little way to one side, and finally fall in their death struggles.

Mr. McNaney stated that the hunters estimated the number of buffaloes _on that portion_ of the range that winter (1881-'82) at 100,000. It is probable, and in fact reasonably certain, that such forced-march migrations as the above were due to snow-covered pastures and a scarcity of food on the more northern ranges.

Having learned that a journey south will bring him to regions of less snow and more grass, it is but natural that so lusty a traveler should migrate.

The herds or bands which started south in the fall months traveled more leisurely, with frequent halts to graze on rich pastures.

The advance was on a very different plan, taking place in straggling lines and small groups dispersed over quite a scope of country.

Unless closely pursued, the buffalo never chose to make a journey of several miles through hilly country on a continuous run.

Even when fleeing from the attack of a hunter, I have often had occasion to notice that, if the hunter was a mile behind, the buffalo would always walk when going uphill; but as soon as the crest was gained he would begin to run, and go down the slope either at a gallop or a swift trot.

In former times, when the buffalo's world was wide, when retreating from an attack he always ran against the wind, to avoid running upon a new danger, which showed that he depended more upon his sense of smell than his eye-sight.

During the last years of his existence, however, this habit almost totally disappeared, and the harried survivors learned to run for the regions which offered the greatest safety.

But even to-day, if a Texas hunter should go into the Staked Plains, and descry in the distance a body of animals running against the wind, he would, without a moment's hesitation, pronounce them buffaloes, and the chances are that he would be right.

In winter the buffalo used to face the storms, instead of turning tail and "drifting" before them helplessly, as domestic cattle do.

But at the same time, when beset by a blizzard, he would wisely seek shelter from it in some narrow and deep valley or system of ravines.

There the herd would lie down and wait patiently for the storm to cease.

After a heavy fall of snow, the place to find the buffalo was in the flats and creek bottoms, where the tall, rank bunch-grasses showed their tops above the snow, and afforded the best and almost the only food obtainable.

When the snow-fall was unusually heavy, and lay for a long time on the ground, the buffalo was forced to fast for days together, and sometimes even weeks.

If a warm day came, and thawed the upper surface of the snow sufficiently for succeeding cold to freeze it into a crust, the outlook for the bison began to be serious.

A man can travel over a crust through which the hoofs of a ponderous bison cut like chisels and leave him floundering belly-deep.

It was at such times that the Indians hunted him on snow-shoes, and drove their spears into his vitals as he wallowed helplessly in the drifts.

Then the wolves grew fat upon the victims which they, also, slaughtered almost without effort.

Although buffaloes did not often actually perish from hunger and cold during the severest winters (save in a few very exceptional cases), they often came out in very poor condition.

The old bulls always suffered more severely than the rest, and at the end of winter were frequently in miserable plight.

Unlike most other terrestrial quadrupeds of America, so long as he could roam at will the buffalo had settled migratory habits.

[39] While the elk and black-tail deer change their altitude twice a year, in conformity with the approach and disappearance of winter, the buffalo makes a radical change of latitude.

This was most noticeable in the great western pasture region, where the herds were most numerous and their movements most easily observed.

[Note 39: On page 248 of his "North American Indians," vol. I, Mr. Catlin declares pointedly that "these animals are, truly speaking, gregarious, but not migratory; they graze in immense and almost incredible numbers at times, and roam about and over vast tracts of country from east to west and from west to east as often as from north to south, which has often been supposed they naturally and habitually did to accommodate themselves to the temperature of the climate in the different latitudes."

Had Mr. Catlin resided continuously in any one locality on the great buffalo range, he would have found that the buffalo had decided migratory habits.

The abundance of proof on this point renders it unnecessary to eater fully into the details of the subject.

] At the approach of winter the whole great system of herds which ranged from the Peace River to the Indian Territory moved south a few hundred miles, and wintered under more favorable circumstances than each band would have experienced at its farthest north.

Thus it happened that nearly the whole of the great range south of the Saskatchewan was occupied by buffaloes even in winter.

The movement north began with the return of mild weather in the early spring.

Undoubtedly this northward migration was to escape the heat of their southern winter range rather than to find better pasture; for as a grazing country for cattle all the year round, Texas is hardly surpassed, except where it is overstocked.

It was with the buffaloes a matter of choice rather than necessity which sent them on their annual pilgrimage northward.

Col. R.

I.

Dodge, who has made many valuable observations on the migratory habits of the southern buffaloes, has recorded the following:[40] "Early in spring, as soon as the dry and apparently desert prairie had begun to change its coat of dingy brown to one of palest green, the horizon would begin to be dotted with buffalo, single or in groups of two or three, forerunners of the coming herd.

Thicker and thicker and in larger groups they come, until by the time the grass is well up the whole vast landscape appears a mass of buffalo, some individuals feeding, others standing, others lying down, but the herd moving slowly, moving constantly to the northward.

* * * Some years, as in 1871, the buffalo appeared to move northward in one immense column oftentimes from 20 to 50 miles in width, and of unknown depth from front to rear.

Other years the northward journey was made in several parallel columns, moving at the same rate, and with their numerous flankers covering a width of a hundred or more miles.

"The line of march of this great spring migration was not always the same, though it was confined within certain limits.

I am informed by old frontiersmen that it has not within twenty-five years crossed the Arkansas River east of Great Bend nor west of Big Sand Creek.

The most favored routes crossed the Arkansas at the mouth of Walnut Creek, Pawnee Fork, Mulberry Creek, the Cimarron Crossing, and Big Sand Creek.

"As the great herd proceeds northward it is constantly depleted, numbers wandering off to the right and left, until finally it is scattered in small herds far and wide over the vast feeding grounds, where they pass the summer.

"When the food in one locality fails they go to another, and towards fall, when the grass of the high prairie becomes parched by the heat and drought, they gradually work their way back to the south, concentrating on the rich pastures of Texas and the Indian Territory, whence, the same instinct acting on all, they are ready to start together on the northward march as soon as spring starts the grass."

[Note 40: Our Wild Indians, p. 283, _et seq.

_] So long as the bison held undisputed possession of the great plains his migratory habits were as above--regular, general, and on a scale that was truly grand.

The herds that wintered in Texas, the Indian Territory, and New Mexico probably spent their summers in Nebraska, southwestern Dakota, and Wyoming.

The winter herds of northern Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and southern Dakota went to northern Dakota and Montana, while the great Montana herds spent the summer on the Grand Coteau des Prairies lying between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri.

The two great annual expeditions of the Red River half-breeds, which always took place in summer, went in two directions from Winnipeg and Pembina--one, the White Horse Plain division, going westward along the Qu'Appelle to the Saskatchewan country, and the other, the Red River division, southwest into Dakota.

In 1840 the site of the present city of Jamestown, Dakota, was the northeastern limit of the herds that summered in Dakota, and the country lying between that point and the Missouri was for years the favorite hunting ground of the Red River division.

The herds which wintered on the Montana ranges always went north in the early spring, usually in March, so that during the time the hunters were hauling in the hides taken on the winter hunt the ranges were entirely deserted.

It is equally certain, however, that a few small bauds remained in certain portions of Montana throughout the summer.

But the main body crossed the international boundary, and spent the summer on the plains of the Saskatchewan, where they were hunted by the half-breeds from the Red River settlements and the Indians of the plains.

It is my belief that in this movement nearly all the buffaloes of Montana and Dakota participated, and that the herds which spent the summer in Dakota, where they were annually hunted by the Red River half-breeds, came up from Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska.

While most of the calves were born on the summer ranges, many were brought forth en route.

It was the habit of the cows to retire to a secluded spot, if possible a ravine well screened from observation, bring forth their young, and nourish and defend them until they were strong enough to join the herd.

Calves were born all the time from March to July, and sometimes even as late as August.

On the summer ranges it was the habit of the cows to leave the bulls at calving time, and thus it often happened that small herds were often seen composed of bulls only.

Usually the cow produced but one calf, but twins were not uncommon.

Of course many calves were brought forth in the herd, but the favorite habit of the cow was as stated.

As soon as the young calves were brought into the herd, which for prudential reasons occurred at the earliest possible moment, the bulls assumed the duty of protecting them from the wolves which at all times congregated in the vicinity of a herd, watching for an opportunity to seize a calf or a wounded buffalo which might be left behind.

A calf always follows its mother until its successor is appointed and installed, unless separated from her by force of circumstances.

They suck until they are nine months old, or even older, and Mr. McNaney once saw a lusty calf suck its mother (in January) on the Montana range several hours after she had been killed for her skin.

When a buffalo is wounded it leaves the herd immediately and goes off as far from the line of pursuit as it can get, to escape the rabble of hunters, who are sure to follow the main body.

If any deep ravines are at hand the wounded animal limps away to the bottom of the deepest and most secluded one, and gradually works his way up to its very head, where he finds himself in a perfect cul-de-sac, barely wide enough to admit him.

Here he is so completely hidden by the high walls and numerous bends that his pursuer must needs come within a few feet of his horns before his huge bulk is visible.

I have more than once been astonished at the real impregnability of the retreats selected by wounded bison.

In following up wounded bulls in ravine headings it always became too dangerous to make the last stage of the pursuit on horseback, for fear of being caught in a passage so narrow as to insure a fatal accident to man or horse in case of a sudden discovery of the quarry.

I have seen wounded bison shelter in situations where a single bull could easily defend himself from a whole pack of wolves, being completely walled in on both sides and the rear, and leaving his foes no point of attack save his head and horns.

Bison which were nursing serious wounds most often have gone many days at a time without either food or water, and in this connection it may be mentioned that the recuperative power of a bison is really wonderful.

Judging from the number of old leg wounds, fully healed, which I have found in freshly killed bisons, one may be tempted to believe that a bison never died of a broken leg.

One large bull which I skeletonized had had his humerus shot squarely in two, but it had united again more firmly than ever.

Another large bull had the head of his left femur and the hip socket shattered completely to pieces by a big ball, but he had entirely recovered from it, and was as lusty a runner as any bull we chased.

We found that while a broken leg was a misfortune to a buffalo, it always took something more serious than that to stop him.