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.
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.
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.