It was planned that the various members of the party should cook turn about, a week at a time, but one of them soon developed such a rare and conspicuous talent for bread-making and general cookery that he was elected by acclamation to cook during the entire season. To the other three members fell the hunting. Each man hunted separately from the others, and skinned all the animals that his rifle brought down.
There were buffalo on the range when the hunters arrived, and the killing began at once. At daylight the still-hunter sallied forth on foot, carrying in his hand his huge Sharps rifle, weighing from 16 to 19 pounds, with from seventy-five to one hundred loaded cartridges in his two belts or his pockets. At his side, depending from his belt, hung his “hunter’s companion,” a flat leather scabbard, containing a ripping knife, a skinning knife, and a butcher’s steel upon which to sharpen them. The total weight carried was very considerable, seldom less than 36 pounds, and often more.
Inasmuch as it was highly important to move camp as seldom as possible in the course of a season’s work, the hunter exercised the greatest precaution in killing his game, and had ever before his mind the necessity of doing his killing without frightening away the survivors.
With ten thousand buffaloes on their range, it was considered the height of good luck to find a “bunch” of fifty head in a secluded “draw” or hollow, where it was possible to “make a kill” without disturbing the big herd.
The still-hunter usually went on foot, for when buffaloes became so scarce as to make it necessary for him to ride his occupation was practically gone. At the time I speak of, the hunter seldom had to walk more than 3 miles from camp to find buffalo, in case there were any at all on his range, and it was usually an advantage to be without a horse. From the top of a ridge or high butte the country was carefully scanned, and if several small herds were in sight the one easiest to approach was selected as the one to attack. It was far better to find a herd lying down or quietly grazing, or sheltering from a cold wind, than to find it traveling, for while a hard run of a mile or two often enabled the hunter to “head off” a moving herd and kill a certain number of animals out of it, the net results were never half so satisfactory as with herds absolutely at rest.
Having decided upon an attack, the hunter gets to leeward of his game, and approaches it according to the nature of the ground. If it is in a hollow, he secures a position at the top of the nearest ridge, as close as he can get. If it is in a level “flat,” he looks for a gully up which he can skulk until within good rifle-shot. If there is no gully, he may be obliged to crawl half a mile on his hands and knees, often through snow or amongst beds of prickly pear, taking advantage of even such scanty cover as sage-brush affords. Some Montana still-hunters adopted the method of drawing a gunny-sack over the entire upper half of the body, with holes cut for the eyes and arms, which simple but unpicturesque arrangement often enabled the hunter to approach his game much more easily and more closely than would otherwise have been possible.
Having secured a position within from 100 to 250 yards of his game (often the distance was much greater), the hunter secures a comfortable rest for his huge rifle, all the time keeping his own person thoroughly hidden from view, estimates the distance, carefully adjusts his sights, and begins business. If the herd is moving, the animal in the lead is the first one shot, close behind the fore leg and about a foot above the brisket, which sends the ball through the lungs. If the herd is at rest, the oldest cow is always supposed to be the leader, and she is the one to kill first. The noise startles the buffaloes, they stare at the little cloud of white smoke and feel inclined to run, but seeing their leader hesitate they wait for her. She, when struck, gives a violent start forward, but soon stops, and the blood begins to run from her nostrils in two bright crimson streams. In a couple of minutes her body sways unsteadily, she staggers, tries hard to keep her feet, but soon gives a lurch sidewise and falls. Some of the other members of the herd come around her and stare and sniff in wide-eyed wonder, and one of the more wary starts to lead the herd away. But before she takes half a dozen steps “bang!” goes the hidden rifle again, and her leadership is ended forever. Her fall only increases the bewilderment of the survivors over a proceeding which to them is strange and unaccountable, because the danger is not visible. They cluster around the fallen ones, sniff at the warm blood, bawl aloud in wonderment, and do everything but run away.
The policy of the hunter is to not fire too rapidly, but to attend closely to business, and every time a buffalo attempts to make off, shoot it down. One shot per minute was a moderate rate of firing, but under pressure of circumstances two per minute could be discharged with deliberate precision. With the most accurate hunting rifle ever made, a “dead rest,” and a large mark practically motionless, it was no wonder that nearly every shot meant a dead buffalo. The vital spot on a buffalo which stands with its side to the hunter is about a foot in diameter, and on a full-grown bull is considerably more. Under such conditions as the above, which was called getting “a stand,” the hunter nurses his victims just as an angler plays a big fish with light tackle, and in the most methodical manner murders them one by one, either until the last one falls, his cartridges are all expended, or the stupid brutes come to their senses and run away. Occasionally the poor fellow was troubled by having his rifle get too hot to use, but if a snow-bank was at hand he would thrust the weapon into it without ceremony to cool it off.
A success in getting a stand meant the slaughter of a good-sized herd. A hunter whom I met in Montana, Mr. Harry Andrews, told me that he once fired one hundred and fifteen shots from one spot and killed sixty-three buffalo in less than an hour. The highest number Mr. McNaney ever knew of being killed in one stand was ninety-one head, but Colonel Dodge once counted one hundred and twelve carcasses of buffalo “inside of a semicircle of 200 yards radius, all of which were killed by one man from the same spot, and in less than three-quarters of an hour.”
The “kill” being completed, the hunter then addressed himself to the task of skinning his victims. The northern hunters were seldom guilty of the reckless carelessness and lack of enterprise in the treatment of robes which at one time was so prominent a feature of work on the southern range. By the time white men began to hunt for robes on the northern range, buffalo were becoming comparatively scarce, and robes were worth from $2 to $4 each. The fur-buyers had taught the hunters, with the potent argument of hard cash, that a robe carefully and neatly taken off, stretched, and kept reasonably free from blood and dirt, was worth more money in the market than one taken off in a slovenly manner, and contrary to the nicer demands of the trade. After 1880, buffalo on the northern range were skinned with considerable care, and amongst the robe-hunters not one was allowed to become a loss when it was possible to prevent it. Every full-sized cow robe was considered equal to $3.50 in hard cash, and treated accordingly. The hunter, or skinner, always stretched every robe out on the ground to its fullest extent while it was yet warm, and cut the initials of his employer in the thin subcutaneous muscle which always adhered to the inside of the skin. A warm skin is very elastic, and when stretched upon the ground the hair holds it in shape until it either dries or freezes, and so retains its full size. On the northern range skins were so valuable that many a dispute arose between rival outfits over the ownership of a dead buffalo, some of which produced serious results.