Curiously enough, not even the buffalo hunters themselves were at the time aware of the fact that the end of the hunting season of 1882-’83 was also the end of the buffalo, at least as an inhabitant of the plains and a source of revenue.  In the autumn of 1883 they nearly all outfitted as usual, often at an expense of many hundreds of dollars, and blithely sought “the range” that had up to that time been so prolific in robes.  The end was in nearly every case the same—­total failure and bankruptcy.  It was indeed hard to believe that not only the millions, but also the thousands, had actually gone, and forever.

I have found it impossible to ascertain definitely the number of robes and hides shipped from the northern range during the last years of the slaughter, and the only reliable estimate I have obtained was made for me, alter much consideration and reflection, by Mr. J. N. Davis, of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Mr. Davis was for many years a buyer of furs, robes, and hides on a large scale throughout our Northwestern Territories, and was actively engaged in buying up buffalo robes as long as there were any to buy.  In reply to a letter asking for statistics, he wrote me as follows, on September 27, 1887: 

“It is impossible to give the exact number of robes and hides shipped out of Dakota and Montana from 1876 to 1883, or the exact number of buffalo in the northern herd; but I will give you as correct an account as any one can.  In 1876 it was estimated that there were half a million buffaloes within a radius of 150 miles of Miles City.  In 1881 the Northern Pacific Railroad was built as far west as Glendive and Miles City.  At that time the whole country was a howling wilderness, and Indians and wild buffalo were too numerous to mention.  The first shipment of buffalo robes, killed by white men, was made that year, and the stations on the Northern Pacific Railroad between Miles City and Mandan sent out about fifty thousand hides and robes.  In 1882 the number of hides and robes bought and shipped was about two hundred thousand, and in 1883 forty thousand.  In 1884 I shipped from Dickinson, Dakota Territory, the only car load of robes that went East that year, and it was the last shipment ever made.”

For a long time the majority of the ex-hunters cherished the fond delusion that the great herd had only “gone north” into the British Possessions, and would eventually return in great force.  Scores of rumors of the finding of herds floated about, all of which were eagerly believed at first.  But after a year or two had gone by without the appearance of a single buffalo, and likewise without any reliable information of the existence of a herd of any size, even in British territory, the butchers of the buffalo either hung up their old Sharps rifles, or sold them for nothing to the gun-dealers, and sought other means of livelihood.  Some took to gathering up buffalo bones and selling them by the ton, and others became cowboys.