CHAPTER I
Those who believed in the famous legend of the Lost Herd are gone and few men know the truth.
History records the fact that when the last big herd of bison moved into the north on the spring migration it never returned. The hide hunters watched in vain for the southward movement in the fall for it never came. The big gray buffalo wolves, too, had suddenly vanished from the plains. Strange rumors were heard about this mysterious evaporation of the shaggy horde—rumors which gave birth to the fable of the lost herd that would some day come grazing down out of the north.
Not only in legend were they lost, but lost in truth. Rather than once more run the gauntlet of the guns along the Arkansas and the Platte, the last herd departed from the customs of untold centuries and sought refuge in the hills. They chose the Land of Many Rivers in which to make their final stand.
The snow that falls in one small tangled mass
