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.

2. The chase on horseback or “running buffalo."—­Next to the still-hunt the method called “running buffalo” was the most fatal to the race, and the one most universally practiced.  To all hunters, save greedy white men, the chase on horseback yielded spoil sufficient for every need, and it also furnished sport of a superior kind—­manly, exhilarating, and well spiced with danger.  Even the horses shared the excitement and eagerness of their riders.

So long as the weapons of the Indian consisted only of the bow and arrow and the spear, he was obliged to kill at close quarters or not at all.  And even when fire-arms were first placed in his hands their caliber was so small, the charge so light, and the Indian himself so poor a marksman at long range, that his best course was still to gallop alongside the herd on his favorite “buffalo horse” and kill at the shortest possible range.  From all accounts, the Red River half-breeds, who hunted almost exclusively with fire-arms, never dreamed of the deadly still hunt, but always killed their game by “running” it.

In former times even the white men of the plains did the most of their buffalo hunting on horseback, using the largest-sized Colt’s revolver, sometimes one in each hand, until the repeating-rifle made its appearance, which in a great measure displaced the revolver in running buffalo.  But about that time began the mad warfare for “robes” and “hides,” and the only fair and sportsmanlike method of hunting was declared too slow for the greedy buffalo-skinners.

Then came the cold-blooded butchery of the still-hunt.  From that time on the buffalo as a game animal steadily lost caste.  It soon came to be universally considered that there was no sport in hunting buffalo.  True enough of still-hunting, where the hunter sneaks up and shoots them down one by one at such long range the report of his big rifle does not even frighten them away.  So far as sportsmanlike fairness is concerned, that method was not one whit more elevated than killing game by poison.