Such was the end of the great southern herd.  In 1871 it contained certainly no fewer than three million buffaloes, and by the beginning of 1875 its existence as a herd had utterly ceased, and nothing but scattered, fugitive bands remained.

7. The Destruction of the Northern Herd.—­Until the building of the Northern Pacific Railway there were but two noteworthy outlets for the buffalo robes that were taken annually in the Northwestern Territories of the United States.  The principal one was the Missouri River, and the Yellowstone River was the other.  Down these streams the hides were transported by steam-boats to the nearest railway shipping point.  For fifty years prior to the building of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1880-’82, the number of robes marketed every year by way of these streams was estimated variously at from fifty to one hundred thousand.  A great number of hides taken in the British Possessions fell into the hands of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and found a market in Canada.

In May, 1881, the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal contained the following information in regard to the buffalo robe “crop” of the previous hunting season—­the winter of 1880-’81: 

“It is estimated by competent authorities that one hundred thousand buffalo hides will be shipped out of the Yellowstone country this season.  Two firms alone are negotiating for the transportation of twenty-five thousand hides each. * * * Most of our citizens saw the big load of buffalo hides that the C.  K. Peck brought down last season, a load that hid everything about the boat below the roof of the hurricane deck.  There were ten thousand hides in that load, and they were all brought out of the Yellowstone on one trip and transferred to the C.  K. Peck.  How such a load could have been piled on the little Terry not even the men on the boat appear to know.  It hid every part of the boat, barring only the pilot-house and smoke-stacks.  But such a load will not be attempted again.  For such boats as ply the Yellowstone there are at least fifteen full loads of buffalo hides and other pelts.  Reckoning one thousand hides to three car loads, and adding to this fifty cars for the other pelts, it will take at least three hundred and fifty box-cars to carry this stupendous bulk of peltry East to market.  These figures are not guesses, but estimates made by men whose business it is to know about the amount of hides and furs awaiting shipment.

“Nothing like it has ever been known in the history of the fur trade.  Last season the output of buffalo hides was above the average, and last year only about thirty thousand hides came out of the Yellowstone country, or less than a third of what is there now awaiting shipment The past severe winter caused the buffalo to bunch themselves in a few valleys where there was pasturage, and there the slaughter went on all winter.  There was no sport about it, simply shooting down the famine-tamed animals as cattle might be shot down in a barn-yard.  To the credit of the Indians it can be said that they killed no more than they could save the meat from.  The greater part of the slaughter was done by white hunters, or butchers rather, who followed the business of killing and skinning buffalo by the mouth, leaving the carcasses to rot.”