As already intimated, the price paid on the range for ordinary buffalo skins varied according to circumstances, and at different periods, and in different localities, ranged all the way from 65 cents to $10.  The latter figure was paid in Texas in 1887 for the last lot of “robes” ever taken.  The lowest prices ever paid were during the tremendous slaughter which annihilated the southern herd.  Even as late as 1876, in the southern country, cow robes brought on the range only from 65 to 90 cents, and bull robes $1.15.  On the northern range, from 1881 to 1883, the prices paid were much higher, ranging from $2.50 to $4.

[Illustration:  FIG. 1.  FIVE MINUTES’ WORK.  Photographed by L. A. Huffman.]

[Illustration:  FIG. 2.  SCENE ON THE NORTHERN BUFFALO RANGE.  Photographed by L. A. Huffman.]

A few hundred dressed robes still remain in the hands of some of the largest fur dealers in New York, Chicago, and Montreal, which can be purchased at prices much lower than one would expect, considering the circumstances.  In 1888, good robes, Indian tanned, were offered in New York at prices ranging from $15 to $30, according to size and quality, but in Montreal no first-class robes were obtainable at less than $40.

Hides.—­Next in importance to robes was the class of skins known commercially as hides.  Under this head were classed all skins which for any reason did not possess the pelage necessary to a robe, and were therefore fit only for conversion into leather.  Of these, the greater portion consisted of the skins of old bulls on which the hair was of poor quality and the skin itself too thick and heavy to ever allow of its being made into a soft, pliable, and light-weight robe.  The remaining portion of the hides marketed were from buffaloes killed in spring and summer, when the body and hindquarters ware almost naked.  Apparently the quantity of summer-killed hides marketed was not very great, for it was only the meanest and most unprincipled ones of the grand army of buffalo-killers who were mean enough to kill buffaloes in summer simply for their hides.  It is said that at one time summer-killing was practiced on the southern range to an extent that became a cause for alarm to the great body of more respectable hunters, and the practice was frowned upon so severely that the wretches who engaged in it found it wise to abandon it.

Bones.—­Next in importance to robes and hides was the bone product, the utilization of which was rendered possible by the rigorous climate of the buffalo plains.  Under the influence of the wind and sun and the extremes of heat and cold, the flesh remaining upon a carcass dried up, disintegrated, and fell to dust, leaving the bones of almost the entire skeleton as clean and bare as if they had been stripped of flesh by some powerful chemical process.  Very naturally, no sooner did the live buffaloes begin to grow scarce than the miles of bleaching’ bones suggested the idea of finding a use for them.  A market was readily found for them in the East, and the prices paid per ton were sufficient to make the business of bone-gathering quite remunerative.  The bulk of the bone product was converted into phosphate for fertilizing purposes, but much of it was turned into carbon for use in the refining of sugar.