BMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) // 1.0 I.I US flM 12.2 i a. wm US lii u U.||2£ Ji 1-25 ||U ||.6 « 6" ► yj 7^ 9. a;^ y /^ Photographic Sciences Corporalion 'i? WeST MAIN STRKT WIBSTM,N.Y. 14580 (7 *) S72-4S03 r///c from Montreal to \'an- couver across the continent on the Cana- dian railway, 1 scarcely ever was able to look at the ground for a space of ten min- utes as we sped along without seeing what is called bison trail. This trail is a nar- row but deep rut in the turf, as though marking the route over which a mammoth bicycle or a millstone had been dragged across the country. There were tens of thousands of these, and wherever there was a pond or stream they converged to- ward it like the spokes of a vast wheel, centring at the water but spreading away from it as far as the eye could reach in every direction. In Assiniboia and Al- berta, where tlie rich alluvial soil is al- most black, these trails often bore a re- semblance to crayon lines drawn on brown paper. In tliese provinces, where horse and cattle breeding are thriving in- dustries, the peculiar fact is noticed that the beeves of the ranches and ranges al- ways follow the old bison trails in their meanderings for food and water. The footpaths that their savage congeners made in the days of their supremacy are attractive to the domestic cattle, because they always lead to water and are hard, well-beaten paths, much easier to travel than the une\ en and yielding prairie. In those ever-freshened, deeply-graven lines mankind reads a tale writ in the grass. The clima.v of the story was reached so long ago that the tale seems old, but we will see that time has been adding new chapters for the traveler to read. As we journeyed on we found that the bison's remains had been made the basis of a thriving business. At the outset we saw a few bison bones dotting the grass in white specks hTe and there, and soon we met great trains, each of many box cars, laden with nothing but these weather- whitened relics. Presently we came to stations where, beside the tracks, mounds of these bones were heaped up and rude men were swelling the heaps with wagon loads garnered far from the railroad, for a great business has grown up in gathering these trophies. They are shipped P'.ast and sold at something like ^15 a ton to sugar OUTING FOR OCTOBER. manufacturers for use in their retiniiij,^ processes. 'I'he trade will j^o on for years, we are told, and every year the ])rairie at jrreater distances from tlie railroad will be cleared of the bleached memen- tos of the erstwhile numerous bison. How strangely everytiung that recalls the bison also calls to mind the vast, incalculable number of them that there must have been ! We certainlv saw a million of round them we could see women, lads and children, lazdy watching the train. Some "coyooses," as they call the Indian I)()nies, were browsing close at hand. Then the train would run into a station, and we would see a dozen or perhaps a score of Indian Ijraves and stpiaws in their gay blankets and paint-daubed faces, all hurrying up at a dog trot to board the cars when they should stop. The women IIIK MONAKCH cl|- THK WKST. horns and jaw bones in the cars and the mounds, and yet for years the busi- ness of carting them away has gone on. While we were yet on the western edge of Manitoba we began to be besieged by redskins selling bison horns in their pol- ished state. Queer sights these, and soon to become mere memories like the recollections of the bison itself. The train would pass a number of dirty but picturesque tepees on the prairie. Loafing and boys would leap on the platforms, holding up pairs of lustrously-polished horns and shouting "A dollar I " " Look, one dollar ! " Nearly everyone in the first- class cars made purchases, for the horns these Indians polish are always very shapely, large and neatly put together, while the tuft of shaggy hair at the junc- ture makes them look as if they had been wrenched from a living bison's skull, and si'.rh horns would cost at least $5 a pair THE TFAIL OF TJfE BISON. 5 in New York. In their jireijaration tiie noble red man iilustrateK liis idea of how labor should be dividetl between the sexes, for while he coni|)eis his s(Hiaw to work on a pair of horns from five to seven weeks, at the exniration of that term he is self s.'icrificir,.^ enou,i;h to take the dollar which they briiisr. 'I'iie women nse only the rudest implements, knives and bits of jjlass, to rid the horn of its incrustation of dirt and itsouter surface of bleached bone, and when the black horn is reached they laboriously polish it with flannel, oil and the palms of their hands. Nothing brings to the mind with greater emphasis the extent of degradation that the once noble savage has undergone than to see them peddling these horns on the railroads. The Indian and the bison were to one another what the codfish is to the Nova Scotia fisherman ; aye, far more than that, for, though the fisherman relies entirely on the cod for support, the proc- ess is indirect, while the red man drew nearly everything he needed and owned directly from the bison. It furnished his skin tent, his fond and many of !,is imple- ments. He got his strength and sicill with weajions and with horses, his agility, his work, his sport, all in bison hunting. Never were twins bound closer together, never was nature more helpful toman than in this relationship; and now that che bison is gone the Indian is the most 'lelplcss crea- ture on the Creator's foot st.)()l. Hut be- fore speaking of his now helpless state let it be noted that gravi; as was the matter to him he did almost as much as the white man toward the unnecessary and brutal extermination of the bison. The extinction of the animal was the result of the increasing value of the fur. While the bison and the red man lived to- gether in the manner provided by nature, the hitter no more lessened the plenteous- ness of the animals than the wise man- agement of our seal fisheries in Alaska decreases the supply in that field. Buc when the white pot hunters began their ravages, those who saw the tragedy during its progress say that the Indians became frenzied and, in Canada at least, \ vK - iiv,.-« :^ \t,iM — '-"'"*"-- C-sa^^?^ ^ mik'i.^^ • .0*1 sp^ksts:^^^^ AN OLn-TIMF. HERD. I ii 1) i ^ • ' OUTING FOR OCTOBER. i acted like demented Imntsmen. Well armed and mounted, tliey rotle into the herds of bison and slaujjjiitered them from mere deviltry, killing tiiem by tiie myr'ad in Slimmer wlien tiie skins were worthless, and merely puUinjr out their tonjjues for luscious fireside tid-bits, while they left the carcasses to rot and feetl the wolves. It was a hij^h carnival of murder, uneciual- ed, i)robably, in the annals of sj^ort, savagery or folly. At Calgary, in Alberta, the young me- tropolis of the Northwest I'rovinces, I was told that .some of these same Indians who engaged in this reckless slaughter (C'rees, Blootls, I'iegans and Hlackfeet all were alike concerned in it) now take to their ponies in the springtime and ride away as of old, but in silence and sadness. " Where are you bound ? " some white man incjuires of one at the head of the cavalcade. " For the buffalo " is the reply. " But there are no more." " No, we know it." " Then why are you going on such a foolish chase?" " Oh, we always go at this time ; maybe we shall find some." Could anything be more pathetic ? But they do not find them, of course, and the result is that the misery they suffer is almost beyond description. At and near the different Canadian reserves I saw such destitution as seemed incred- ible, such as made them appear to me the most unfortunate of human creatures. I saw their tepees, once made of skin but now of muslin, the thin walls literally riddled by sparks and cinders that had leaped through them from the fires with- in. I went into tent aft'jr tent and saw the braves with their dismembered trou- sers covering three-cjuarters of each leg, with their thin shirts and the blankets which they never go without. The wo- men, too, were well clad only for that hottest time of year. Yet what they wore in midsummer was all that they would wear at Christmas — all that they wore the Christmas before. In such muslin tepees on tho.se bleak plains, with the thermom- eter anywhere between io° above and 40*' below, these poor wretches spend the winter days and nights. The wmd howls through their cullender - like tents, the fires (often fed with wet wood) burn fee- bly, and around them squat the braves and squaws, obliged literally to keep turning around and around, now with their f;r es to the fire and now with their backs to it, to keep from freczmg to death. Whether they are to be con- denuied for failing to hoard wood and to ]>rovide themselves with food, who shall say ? They do neither, but what white man can judge an Indian for his queer pride and shiftless ways ? With a Covermnent agency a mile away on the reserve, many will keep to their tepees for days rather than go and get their supplies, only asking for them when death from hunger is staring them in the face. When their ally, the bison, was with them they lived a picturescjue and com- fortable savage life, with good shelter and food, for bounteous was the recompense for the only toil for which they were fit- ted. Xow that the bison is gone, not only is their worldly condition such as I have pictured, but their moral life is a thousandfold worse. In no places be- tween Manitoba and the Rocky Moun- tains is the number of white women at all justly proportioned to the number of white settlers, and in many districts almost the only women are the Indian squaws. Alas! the white man too nearly resembles that to which the Southern negroes always liken him in their folk lore — a fox. He is a con'upter and destroyer as an individual (whatever may be his influence in masses), without principle, shame, or even self regard. Since the days when the first gangs of railroad laborers inched their way across the continent with the rails and ties of the Canadian Pacific road, the work of destroying the Canadian Indians by the basest of means has wa.xed and grown apace. Father Lacombe, the most learned and famous missionary among the Indians, told me when I met him at his home in Calgary that at the present rate of destruction the western Indians of Can- ada must follow the bison in fifteen years. Scarcely any man understands the Indi- ans so well as does the Father ; no other white man knows them so intimately. So long ago did his work prnong them begin that on the spot where stood his rude log hut now rise the imposing quarters of the Pioneer-Press in St. Paul, a city that at that time (1849) consisted of twenty-two log houses, and he has roamed all over Brit- ish America with every tribe which it con- tains. He was with the red men when they held undisputed possession of the territory, sharing their life when petty wars were ever raging and being recog- nized as the common friend and good \ I 1 1 4 THE 'I'RAir. OF rifE BISON. \ \ counsellor of all the tribes. Now the Cioveriiment calls upon him when it has neeil of an ir.iportant envoy to the Indi- ans, as was the case when he obtaineil tlie promise of tiinse |)eoi)le not totake,)art in the half-breed rel)ellion headed by Kiel. Scholars know I'ere A. Lacombe as the author of the " Dictionnaire et (Iram- maire de la Lanjjue C'rise " (the C'ree languajje) and the reviser of iJishop Ikir- aj^er's j^rammar of the Ojibway lanjfuage. Better than this and all else, he is at- tached to the Indians in friendship and sympathy, and is a ),M)od, unselfish, kindly man. " 1 went to old ('rowfoot, amonji; others," he said, " and 1 said to him and his head men: 'A railroad is coming through here. Many men will build it. They wdl stop at many points near your reservation. You must not see them. Stay on your reserve Keep your women with you. On no account go and try to bargain with or visit these men. If you stay in your place all will be well, but if you mix with the white men you will die, you and your women and your children. Every misfortune will come upon you — shame, sickness and mis- ery and horrible death.' I s p o k e pleadingly and earnestly, telling them I knew of what 1 spoke; that it was no new situ- ation, but, alas I an old and com- mon story. Soon the railroad came nearer, and I went again and warned them, and they promised to t)bey me." The good and venerable priest paused and shook his head deject- edly. " Well," he con- tinued, " the rail- road was pushed up to this point and the Indians proved, as they al- ways have proved, to be mere chil- tlren. One day I came to my door here and found a number of the Indians standing outside. ' What are you doing here ? Did I not tell you not to come?' They hung their heads. I insisted on knowing what they were doing here. They were silent a long while. 'I'hen one pointed to the tepees in the distance and said they had come to see the white man and get some money. ' Shame on you ! ' I cried. I told them they were less worthy than their dogs and horses and 1 drove them from my door. And so it has gone on from that day to this until, as I told you, at the present rate of decay the prairie Indian of Canada will be extinct in fifteen years." Upstairs, in the rigidly plain little par- sonage of the chapel, the good priest keeps a few Indian curiosities. He jirizes highly the hunting arrows he has collected and saved, for they recall the era of the bison. He gave me two and told with sparkling eyes how he had more than once seen an Indian shoot one clear through a bison so that it fell upright in the prairie sod to quiver there when the horseman and the bison had passed by. " Ah, those were the Indian's days," he WHO GOF.S THERE ? Reproduced from Outing, Vol. VIII., page 322. OUTIXG FOR OCTOBER. said. " and tlu'sc are the wliite man's." Half an lumr later I was passiiijj tlie tepees of a l)aiul of " lUood " Indians on the outskirts of I'alyary. The men and women were away and only the children and some old hajjs were in the tents. The little redskins looked at my arrows with 'j,ni()rant cnriosity, hnt the old scjiiaws lautjhed and rnbhed their han when they saw them. It was like a r jUeetion of Paradise to fallen anj^els for them to see a huntinif arrow once ai,ann. And there are no more bison ? A herd of about forty was being kept for brted- \\\<^ near A\'innipeg last summer by pri- vate ]iersons ancl 1 was told the scene of experiment was to be moved to Qu'Appelle, in Assiniboia, where the blending of bison with do- mestic cuttle was to be tried on a large scale ii. a well- met a hunter wiio positively declares tliat he saw the herd. It is wild and is com- posed of about twenty-five old bulls which were ilriven out of the herds years ago by the young ones, acconling to the custom of the bison. This hunter assured me that many a man has seen this herd and withheld his shot from a feeling of mercy, for all but the Indians and half breeds are filled with shame over the slaughter of .c ny A' HIS LAST RUN. guarded inclosure. There is said to be a larger herd on the Yellowstone in our own country, guarded by the cowboys far better than they generally guard cattle, so that no half breeds or sportsmen may hunt them. I know that the Winnipeg herd was in existence when I was there and have every reason to believe the tale of the Yellowstone herd is true. Sports- men and some Canadian Government sur- veyors report that bison are still seen on the Red Deer River in Assiniboia, and I the noble animal. Certainly this feeling should prevail, and, further yet, the Gov- ernments of the two countries that are united geographically by the bison's graz- ing ground should spare no pains to save whatever there are remaining for breeding purposes. But that story of the mournful bands of diseased, starving and helpless savages starting out every year to hunt the de- parted bison over the grass that is specked with his whitening bones is the story of \ y THE TRAIL OF THE BISON. \ 7 tlif whole situation. The red man |)iir- siiecl the bison as his main siii)port while both were uninterferetl with by civiliza- tion. Now that the bison has gone, the red man must still follow him — even to the same goal. Julian Ralph. ^ 'The enthusiastic sportsman who wishes to find the last of the American bison and undertakes to do it will learn before he has accomplished his purpose that the task will exhaust his leisure moments during many months. He (the bison) exists in limited numbers in many localities in the mountains from northern Montana to the South, even to the plains of 'i'exas. Not in enormous herds as he was found years ago, but in scattered bunches and usually in the small parks where the white man and Indian have failed to follow him. One such herd of this almost extinct crea- ture is known in Colorado, but it is as much as a man's life is worth to invade their home. Within one hundred miles of Denver there are to-day numbers of these ani- mals, and they have been there ever since the oldest settler near their home knew of their existence. There they will probably remain and possibly multiply without hindrance or interference from remorse- less hunters for many years to come. Fortunately for them, they roam in a nat- ural preserve, with the additional safe- guards of a healthy public sentiment around them, backed by stringent State laws, and he who kills one should make haste to place strong barriers between his guilty self and an outraged public, which stands ready to convict on even shadowy circumstantial evidence. His chance for life after committing a homi- cide in broad daylight, in a public thor- oughfare, would be greater than the possi- bility of escaping punishment after killing one of these animals and publicly boast- ing of it. From the point where the Denver and South Park Railroad crosses the range at Kenosha and enters the northern boun- dary of South Park, to Pike's Peak, is prob- ably between thirty and forty miles in a straight line. Along the western slope of the front range beneath this line is a oroken region of which little is known. It offers little attraction except to those purely in search of adventure, and those who have attempted to explore it and re- turned alive tell terrible tales of their hardships and the difficulties encountered before they escaped from its confines. About three years ago an adventurous hunter paid the locality a visit and brought out the evidence that he had shot a buf- falo, but he also presented »indoubted proof that he killed the animai to save himself from starvation while endeavor- ing to escape from what is locally known as Lost Park. The most reliable information concern- ing them comes from the cattlemen whose stocks traverse the margin of Lost Park. These men would lynch any pot hunter who might be foolish enough to kill a bison, and thus the little herd have the double protection of a strong local sentiment aided by strict State laws. One of these men, while hunting cattle, came upon a bunch of about fifty or seventy-fiv(; of them. He could only es- timate their number, as they moved rap- idly away. He saw bulls and cows, but no calves, and he expressed the opinion that they are not breeding to any great extent. Last summer they were also .seen by other stockmen about fifteen miles from Kenosha, who reported them to be in fine condition. The region through which they roam is well watered, and as there is grass along the banks of all mountain streams they doubtless have grazing in abun- dance during the summer. Then they are fat, sleek and active. During the winter, unless the snowfall is heavy, there is probably enough dry grass to keep them alive, but those who have seen them in the spring always note their fee- ble condition and prominent bones. At the session of the legislature in the winter of 1886-7 a law was passed pro- tecting them for ten years and punishing anyone who violated it with fine and im- prisonment, and with such restrictions as these " the game is not worth the pow- der." Added to this is the difficulty of getting into and out of Lost Park, the impossibility of getting guides into this terra incognita, where this little herd of bison roam at will with every opportu- nity to thrive and multiply that State law and popular prejudice in their favor can furnish. Those who have seen them assert that they are smaller than the bi.son of the plains and their hides and hair are of a finer quality, but on this point conjecture and imagination may furnish the bulk of the testimony and be used in the absence ot facts, as with the single exception ^^m,