4. The division of the universal herd.—­Until the building of the first transcontinental railway made it possible to market the “buffalo product,” buffalo hunting as a business was almost wholly in the hands of the Indians.  Even then, the slaughter so far exceeded the natural increase that the narrowing limits of the buffalo range was watched with anxiety, and the ultimate extinction of the species confidently predicted.  Even without railroads the extermination of the race would have taken place eventually, but it would have been delayed perhaps twenty years.  With a recklessness of the future that was not to be expected of savages, though perhaps perfectly natural to civilized white men, who place the possession of a dollar above everything else, the Indians with one accord singled out the cows for slaughter, because their robes and their flesh better suited the fastidious taste of the noble redskin.  The building of the Union Pacific Railway began at Omaha in 1865, and during that year 40 miles were constructed.  The year following saw the completion of 265 miles more, and in 1867 245 miles were added, which brought it to Cheyenne.  In 1868, 350 miles were built, and in 1869 the entire line was open to traffic.

In 1867, when Maj.  J. W. Powell and Prof.  A. H. Thompson crossed the plains by means of the Union Pacific Railway as far as it was constructed and thence onward by wagon, they saw during the entire trip only one live buffalo, a solitary old bull, wandering aimlessly along the south bank of the Platte River.

The completion of the Union Pacific Railway divided forever the buffaloes of the United States into two great herds, which thereafter became known respectively as the northern and southern herds.  Both retired rapidly and permanently from the railway, and left a strip of country over 50 miles wide almost uninhabited by them.  Although many thousand buffaloes were killed by hunters who made the Union Pacific Railway their base of operations, the two great bodies retired north and south so far that the greater number were beyond striking distance from that line.

5. The destruction of the southern herd.—­The geographical center of the great southern herd during the few years of its separate existence previous to its destruction was very near the present site of Garden City, Kansas.  On the east, even as late as 1872, thousands of buffaloes ranged within 10 miles of Wichita, which was then the headquarters of a great number of buffalo-hunters, who plied their occupation vigorously during the winter.  On the north the herd ranged within 25 miles of the Union Pacific, until the swarm of hunters coming down from the north drove them farther and farther south.  On the west, a few small bands ranged as far as Pike’s Peak and the South Park, but the main body ranged east of the town of Pueblo, Colorado.  In the southwest, buffaloes were abundant as far as the Pecos and the Staked Plains, while the