It proved to be the largest female they had ever seen,
and was so old that its tusks were worn quite smooth. The boats escaped
with difficulty between two herds of buffalo that were crossing the
river, and came near being again detained by them. Among the elk of this
neighborhood they saw an unusual number of males, while higher up the
herds consisted chiefly of females."
It is almost incredible that these wild animals should have been so
nearly exterminated by hunters and other rovers of the plains, very soon
after travel set in across the continent. The writer of these lines, who
crossed the plains to California so lately as 1856, saw buffalo
killed for the sake of their tongues, or to give rifle practice to
the wayfarers. After the overland railroad was opened, passengers shot
buffalo from the car-windows, well knowing that they could not get their
game, even if they should kill as they flew by a herd. There are no
buffalo nor elk where millions once roamed almost unmolested.
Early in the afternoon of August 3, the party reached the junction of
the Yellowstone and the Missouri, and camped on the same spot where they
had pitched their tents on the 26th of April, 1805. They were nearing
the end of their long journey.
But their troubles thickened as they drew near the close of their many
miles of travel. The journal for August 4 has this record:--
"The camp became absolutely uninhabitable in consequence of the
multitude of mosquitoes; the men could not work in preparing skins for
clothing, nor hunt in the timbered low grounds; there was no mode of
escape, except by going on the sand-bars in the river, where, if the
wind should blow, the insects do not venture; but when there is no wind,
and particularly at night, when the men have no covering except their
worn-out blankets, the pain they suffer is scarcely to be endured.
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