My Native Land. James Cox
last egg brought the fabulous sum of $1,500.
Last, not least, the American bison is a thing of the past!
It has been historically proven that at the time of the discovery of America, the buffalo herds covered the entire enormous territory from Pennsylvania to Oregon and Nevada, and down to Mexico, and thirty years ago the large emigrant caravans which traveled from the Eastern States across the Mississippi to the gold fields of California, met with herds of buffaloes, not numbering thousands, but hundreds of thousands. The construction trains of the first Pacific Railroad were frequently interrupted and delayed by wandering buffalo herds.
Today the United States may be traversed from end to end, and not a single buffalo will be seen, and nothing remains to even indicate their presence but the deep, well-trodden paths which they made years ago. Rain has not been able to wash away these traces, and they are counted among the "features" of the prairies, where the bisons once roamed in undisturbed glory. It was a difficult task for the Government to gather the last remnants, about 150 to 200 head, to stock Yellowstone Park with them, and to prevent their complete extinction.
Undoubtedly, the buffalo was the most stupid animal of the prairies. In small flocks, he eluded the hunter well enough; but in herds of thousands, he cared not a whit for the shooting at the flanks of his army. Any Indian or trapper, stationed behind some shrubs or earth hill, could kill dozens of buffalo without disturbing the herd by the swish of the arrow, the report of the rifle, or the dying groans of the wounded animals. A general stampede ensued at times, which often led the herd into morasses, or the quick-sand of the rivers, where they perished miserably. The destruction was still greater when the leader of the herd came upon some yawning abyss. Those behind drove him down into the deep, and the entire herd followed blindly, only to be dashed to death.
The very stupidity of the bison helped to exterminate the race, where human agency would have seemed well nigh inadequate.
Among the large game of the continent, the bison was the most important, and furnished the numerous Indian tribes not only with abundant food, but other things as well. They covered their tents with the thick skins, and made saddles, boats, lassoes and shoes from them. Folded up, they used them as beds, and wore them around their shoulders as a protection against the winter's cold. Spoons and other utensils for the household could be made from their hoofs and horns, and their bones were shaped into all kinds of arms and weapons. The life and existence of the prairie Indian depended almost entirely upon that of the buffalo. There is no doubt that the Indians killed many buffaloes, but while the damage may have been great, there was not much of a reduction noticeable in their numbers, for the buffalo cow is an enormous breeder.
Conditions were changed, however, when the white man arrived with his rifle, settled down on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and began to drive the aborigines of the American continent further and further West. With this crowding back of the Indians began that also of the buffalo, and the destruction of the latter was far more rapid than that of the former.
It was about the middle of the Seventeenth Century when the first English colonists climbed the summits of the Allegheny Mountains. Enormous herds of buffalo grazed then in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and in the famous blue grass regions of Kentucky. How fast the buffaloes became exterminated may best be illustrated by the fact that, at the beginning of the present century, the bison had entirely disappeared from the eastern banks of the Mississippi. A few isolated herds could be found in Kentucky in 1792. In 1814 the animal had disappeared in Indiana and Illinois. When the white settlers crossed the Mississippi, to seek connection with the territories on the Pacific coast, the buffalo dominion, once so vast, decreased from year to year, and finally it was split in two and divided into a northern and southern strip. The cause of this division was the California overland emigration, the route of which followed the Kansas and Platte Rivers, cutting through the center of the buffalo regions. These emigrants killed hundreds of thousands of animals, and the division became still greater after the completion of the Union Pacific line and the settlement of the adjacent districts.
The buffaloes of the southern strip were the first to be exterminated, particularly when the building of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad facilitated entrance to the southern range.
Aside from the pleasure and excitement from a buffalo hunt, the yield was a rich one, and troops of hunters swarmed over the Western prairies; buffalo hunting became an industry which gave employment to thousands of people. But human avarice knew no bounds, and massacred senselessly the finest game with which this continent was stocked. The dimensions to which this industry grew may best be guessed when it is stated that in 1872 more than 100,000 buffaloes were killed near Fort Dodge in three months. During the summer of 1874, an expedition composed of sixteen hunters killed 2,800 buffaloes, and during that same season one young trapper boasted of having killed 3,000 animals. The sight of such a slaughter scene was gruesome to behold. Colonel Dodge writes of it: "During the fall of 1873 I rode across the prairie, where a year ago I had hunted several herds. At the time we enjoyed the aspect of a myriad of buffaloes, which were grazing peacefully over the prairies. Now we rode past myriads of decaying cadavers and skeletons, which filled the air with an insufferable stench. The broad plain which, a year ago, had teemed with animals, was nothing more than a dead, foul desert."
Mr. Blackmore, another traveler, who went through Kansas at about the same time, says that he counted, on four acres of ground, no less than sixty-seven buffalo carcasses. As was to be expected, this wholesale and, indeed, wanton slaughter brought its own reward and condemnation. The price of buffalo skins dropped to 50 cents, although as much as $3.00 had been paid regularly for them. Moreover, as the number of animals killed was greater than could be removed, the decaying carcasses attracted wolves, and even worse foes, to the farmyard, and terrible damage to cattle resulted.
The Indians also were disturbed. "Poor Lo" complained of the wanton and senseless killing of the principal means of his sustenance, and when the white man with a laugh ignored these complaints, the Indians got on the war-path, attacked settlements, killed cattle and stole provisions, thus giving rise to conflicts, which devoured not only enormous sums of money, but cost the lives of thousands of people. When the locust plague swept over the fields of Kansas and destroyed the entire crop, the settlers themselves hungered for the buffalo meat of which they had robbed themselves, and vengeance came in more ways than one.
The extermination of the buffalo of the southern range was completed about 1875; to the bisons of the northern range were given a few years' grace. But the same scenes which were enacted in the South, repeated themselves in the North, and the white barbarians were not satisfied until they had killed the last of the noble game in 1885. When the massacre was nearly over, a few isolated herds were collected and transported to Yellowstone Park, where they have increased to about 400 during the last few years, protected by the hunting laws, which are strictly enforced. With the exception of a very few specimens, tenderly nursed by some cattle raisers in Kansas and Texas, and in some remote parts of British America, these are the last animals of a species, which two decades ago wandered in millions over the vast prairies of the West.
CHAPTER V.
THE MORMONS AND THEIR WIVES.
The Pilgrimage Across the Bad Lands to Utah--Incidents of the March--Success of the New Colony--Religious Persecutions--Murder of an Entire Family--The Curse of Polygamy--An Ideal City--Humors of Bathing in Great Salt Lake.
About half a century ago one of the most remarkable pilgrimages of modern times took place. Across what was then, not inaptly, described by writers as an arid and repulsive desert, there advanced a procession of the most unique and awe-inspiring character. History tells us of bands of crusaders who tramped across Europe in order to rescue the Holy Land from tyrants and invaders. On that occasion, all sorts and conditions of men were represented, from the religious enthusiast, to the ignorant bigot,