Part 6 (1/2)

Between the Arkansas and the Saskatchewan buffalo were always plentiful enough for an amateur's hunt; but the trapper of the plains, to who year, favoured two seasons: (1) the end of June, when he had brought in his packs to the fur post and the winter's trapping was over and the fort full of idle hunters keen for the excitement of the chase; (2) in midwinter, when that curious lull came over animal life, before the autuan

In both seasons the buffalo-robes were pri of the fleece, with the fur at its greatest length; fresh and clean and thick in midwinter But in midwinter the hunters were scattered, the herds broken in sht be te herds many miles from a known course South of the Yellowstone the individual hunter pursued the buffalo as he pursued deer--by still-hunting; for though the buffalo was keen of scent, he was dull of sight, except sideways on the level, and was not easily disturbed by a noise as long as he did not see its cause

Behind the shelter of a ht succeed in bringing doould be a creditable showing in abuffalo for their robes

Two or three robes were not enough froet more there was likely to be a stampede Decoy as too slow for the trapper as buffalo-hunting So was tracking on snow-shoes, the way the Indians hunted north of the Yellowstone A wounded buffalo at close range was quite as vicious as a wounded grisly; and it did not pay the trapper to risk his life getting a pelt for which the trader would give hioods

The Indians hunted buffalo by driving them over a precipice where hunters were stationed on each side below, or by luring the herd into a pound or pit byunder a buffalo-hide

But the precipice and pit destroyed too many hides; and if the pound were a sort of _cheval-de-frise_ or corral converging at the inner end, it requiredof the spring brigades

When there were many hunters and countless buffalo, the white blood of the plains' trapper preferred a fair fight in an open field--not the indiscrireatest buffalo-runs took place after the opening of spring The greatest of these were on the Upper Missouri This was the Mandan country, where hunters of the Mackinaw from Michilimackinac, of the Missouri from St

Louis, of the Nor' Westers fro), used to congregate before the War of 1812, which barred out Canadian traders

At a later date the fa Red River ox-carts were used to transport supplies to the scene of the hunt; but at the opening of the last century all hunters, whites, Indians, and squaws, rode to field on cayuse ponies or broncos, with no more supplies than could be stoay in a saddle-pack, and no other escort than the old-fashi+oned muskets over each white man's shoulder or attached to his holster

The Indians were armed with bow and arrow only The course usually led north and ard, for the reason that at this season the herds were on their great rations north, and the course of the rivers headed them ard From the first day out the hunter best fitted for the captainshi+p was recognised as leader, and such disciplinethe buffalo before the cavalcade had closed near enough for the wild rush

At night the hunters slept under open sky with horses picketed to saddles, saddles as pillows, and h the country of hostiles, sentinels kept guard; but ht usually saw all hunters in the deep sleep of outdoor life, bare faces upturned to the stars, a little tenuous strealowed red, and on the far, shadowy horizon, with theprairie in perfect circle, vague, whitish for watch, stealthy and shunless as death

The northwardOdd scattered herds rass grew deeper and lush with spring rains, the reaches of the prairie land became literally covered with the huend ascribed their co directly to the spirits The more prosaic whitefroration was a search for fresh feeding-ground

Be that as itherds that covered the prairie like a flock of locusts; in close-foruards protecting the cows and the young; in long lines, single file, leaving the ground, soft fro rains, marked with a rut like a ditch; in a allop that roared like an ocean tide up hills and down steep ravines, sure-footed as a h the swollen water-course of river and slough, up e--on and on and on--till the tidal wave of life had hulked over the sky-line beyond the heaving horizon Here and there in the brownish-black ht-coloured buffalo, freaks in the anie of the calves in each year's herd varied The writer remembers a sturdy little buffalo that arrived on the scene of this troublous life one freezing night in January, with a howling blizzard and the thermometer at forty below--a combination that is sufficient to set the teeth of thebuffalo spent the first three days of his life in this gale and was none the worse, which seeh it is cold, you don't feel it” Another spindly-legged, clumsy bundle of fawn and fur in the sa afternoon in August

Many signs told the buffalo-runners which way to ride for the herd

There was the trail to the watering-place There were the salt-licks and the s and the crushed grass where two young fellows had been sth There were the bones of the poor old deposed king, picked clear by the coyotes, or, perhaps, the lonely outcast hihtened, a picture of dumb woe! To such the hunter's shot was a ns and surest proof that the herd was near--a little bundle of fawn-coloured fur lying out flat as a door-ainst a clay mound, precisely the colour of its own hide

Poke it! An ear blinks, or a big ox-like eye opens! It is a buffalo calf left cached by thewith the drove Lift it up! It is inert as a sack of wool Let it go! It drops to earth flat and lifeless as a door-mat The mother has told it how to escape the coyotes and wolverines; and the little rascal is ”playing dead” But if you fondle it and warets all about theand follows like a pup

At the first signs of the herd's proximity the squaws parted from the cavalcade and all impedimenta remained behind The best-equipped man was the est buffalo froalloped swift as wind in pursuit, that jerked to a stop directly opposite the brute's shoulders and leaped fro horns No sound cae Then the captain gave the signal, dropped a flag, waved his hand, or fired a shot, and the hunters charged

Arrohistled through the air, shots clattered with the fusillade of artillery volleys Bullets fell to earth with the dull ping of an ai shoulder fur of the buffalo The Indians shouted their war-cry of ”Ah--oh, ah--oh!” Here and there French voices screamed ”Voila! Les boeufs! Les boeufs!

Sacre! Tonnerre! Tir--tir--tir--donc! By Gar!” And Missouri traders called out plain and less picturesque but lish

Sometimes the suddenness of the attack dazed the herd; but the second volley with the smell of powder and smoke and men started the stampede

Then followed such a wild rush as is unknown in the annals of any other kind of hunting, up hills, down ehs, across rivers, hard and fast and far as horses had strength to carry riders in a boundless land!

[Illustration: The buffalo-hunt

After a contemporary print]