To his astonishment, when
he strolled up on the bluffs and looked over the plain, it was still
covered far and wide with groups of buffalo, grazing quietly. Apparently
there were as many on that side as ever, in spite of the many scores of
thousands that must have crossed over the river during the stampede of
the afternoon and night. The barren-ground caribou is the only American
animal which is now ever seen in such enormous herds.
In 1862 Mr. Clarence King, while riding along the overland trail through
western Kansas, passed through a great buffalo herd, and was himself
injured in an encounter with a bull. The great herd was then passing
north, and Mr. King reckoned that it must have covered an area nearly
seventy miles by thirty in extent; the figures representing his rough
guess, made after travelling through the herd crosswise, and upon
knowing how long it took to pass a given point going northward. This
great herd of course was not a solid mass of buffaloes; it consisted of
innumerable bands of every size, dotting the prairie within the limits
given.
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