. Evidently an enormous quantity of
buffalo were still being wasted.

It was considered nothing at all to shoot a buffalo. So-called
sportsmen bombarded right and left, and kept tally to see who should
kill the most. Passengers and train-crews peppered away from coach,
caboose and engine, and the trains did not even halt.

In 1874 there was a great difference to be noted among the herds. They
were getting wild; the hunters laid in wait at the water-holes, and
killed the buffalo that finally had to come in, to drink. In the three
years, 1872-1873-1874, no less than 3,158,730 were killed by the white
hunters; all the Indians together killed perhaps 1,215,000--but they
used these for food, clothing, and in trade for other goods. A full
million more of buffalo were taken out by wagon and pack horse. So
this sums up over five million. The plains were white with skeletons;
in places the air was foul with the odor of decaying meat.

The buffalo had two refuges from the white killer: one far in the
north, in the Sioux country; the other far in the south, in the
Comanche and Kiowa country of present Oklahoma and Texas.

By a treaty made in 1867 the United States had promised that white men
should not hunt south of the Arkansas River. But in 1874, when the
buffalo in Kansas and Nebraska had become scarcer, and the price of
hides was so low that long chases and waits did not pay out, the
hunters gave no attention to the treaty, and located their camps south
of the river, in forbidden territory.

The Indians awakened to the fact that soon there would be no buffalo
left for them. For years they had depended upon the buffalo, as food,
and glue, and clothing and lodge covers. They had believed that the
buffalo were the gift of the Great Spirit, who every spring brought
fresh numbers out of holes in the Staked Plain of western Texas, to
fill the ranks. Now the bad medicine of the whites was about to close
these holes; the buffalo would come north no more.

In the spring of 1874 the Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes and Arapahos
held a council in Indian Territory, to discuss what was to be done.
They decided to make one more stand against the white hunters,
especially those south of the Arkansas.

It was arranged. The Comanches had sent a peace pipe to the council;
all the chiefs smoked, and agreed to peace among themselves and war
against the Americans who were destroying the buffalo reserves.
I-sa-tai, a Comanche medic