droves would be quietly eating
grass, some marching in a slow, stately walk, and others on the run,
going back and forth between their grazing grounds and the river. But
each separate drove kept in quite a compact body.

Sometimes they would keep off from the trail along which we traveled,
for several hours at a time and not trouble us. At other times they
would be going in such great numbers across our route, passing to and
from the river, that we had to wait hours for them to get out of our
way. Often a drove would get frightened at a passing wagon, the report
of a gun, the barking of a dog, or some imaginary enemy, and would start
on a run which soon became a furious stampede, the hindermost following
those before them, and in their blind fury crowding them forward with
such irresistible force that the leaders could not stop if they would.
If they came suddenly to a deep gully the foremost would tumble in till
it was full, and thus form a bridge of bone and flesh over which the
rest would pass. Several times these frightened droves passed so near
our wagons as to be alarming.

One drove came within a few yards of one of our wagons, and some of the
drivers peppered them with bullets from their pistols. Though these
frightened droves could not be stopped, they would shy to the right or
left if an unusual commotion was made in time in front of them. When a
drove, at some distance, seemed to be headed toward our train, we often
ran toward it, yelling, firing guns, and waving articles of clothing.
The leaders would shy off, and that would give direction to the whole
body, and thus relieve us from danger for the time being.

Every teamster, traveler and hunter that crossed the plains felt that he
must kill from one to a dozen or more buffalo. The result was that the
plain was dotted and whitened with tens of thousands of their carcasses
and skeletons. With this general slaughter and the increase of travel
induced by the discovery of the Pike's Peak gold fields, no wonder that
this was the very last year that these animals appeared in large
numbers in the Platte valley. We always estimated their numbers by the
million.[1] For some years after they appeared in large numbers in some
parts of the great plains of the West, but they rapidly declined in
number till they became extinct in their wild state.

[Footnote 1: The estimate was probably not an
exaggeration.

In a late work it is stated on the authority of railroad