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Updated: May 11, 2025
I have carried him thousands and thousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there's not a gorge, nor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don't know as well as we know the bugle-calls. He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very important.
As a matter of fact, at about the time the Army had succeeded in subduing the last of the Indian tribes on the buffalo-range, the most of our Wild West history, at least so far as concerned the boldest adventure, was a thing of the past. It was easy to write of a past which every one now was too new, too ignorant, or too busy critically to remember.
By heading for Independence we should at once get clear of the buffalo-range, and what other game was to be depended on? A stray deer, rabbit, or prairie grouse might suffice to sustain a single traveller for a long time, but there were ten of us. How was this number to be fed on the way?
It would not be long before they should come across the buffalo, and with the delicious "hump-ribs" in plenty, hunters rarely long for other luxuries. All three felt satisfied that the buffalo-range was not far off, and that by keeping due westward they would soon be gratified with the sight of large droves of these animals. They resolved, however, to act with caution.
After much discussion it was agreed that we should remain for some days within the buffalo-range, until we had succeeded in obtaining a supply of meat, and then each carrying his share we should begin our journey homeward. In fact, this was not a disputed point. All knew there remained no other way of saving our lives.
No freer life ever was lived by any savages than by the Horse Indians of the Plains in the buffalo days; and never has the world known a physically higher type of savage. On the buffalo-range that is to say, on the cattle-range which was to be Lewis and Clark met several bands of the Sioux the Mandans and the Assiniboines, the Blackfeet, the Shoshones.
On a map of the territory between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi are traced two pairs of reservations. Of one the Yellowstone, and of the other the Arkansas, is the centre. Each pair is composed of a buffalo-range and a group of Indian tribes. The three lines of east-and-west railway separate them, and shoulder to right and left, north and south, the savage and his herds.
This was rather discouraging, and we reasoned that if such was to be our luck until we got into the buffalo-range we should have a very dull time of it. We were well provisioned, however, and we regretted the absence of game only on account of the sport.
They were led by Army officers whose type has never been improved upon in any later stage of our Army itself, or of any army in the world. There are certain great battles which may at least receive notice, although it would be impossible to mention more than a few of the encounters of the great Indian wars on the buffalo-range at about the time of the buffalo's disappearance.
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