At the approah of winter the whole great system of herds which ranged from the Peace River to the Indian Territory moved south a few hundred miles, and wintered under more favorable circumstances than each band would have experienced at its farthest north. Thus it happened that nearly the whole of the great range south of the Saskatchewan was occupied by buffaloes even in winter.
The movement north began with the return of mild weather in the early spring. Undoubtedly this northward migration was to escape the heat of their southern winter range rather than to find better pasture; for as a grazing country for cattle all the year round. Texas is hardly surpassed, except where it is overstocked. It was with the buffaloes a matter of choice rather than necessity which sent them on their annual pilgrimage northward.
Col. R. L Dodge, who has made many valuable observations on the migratory habits of the southern buffaloes, has recorded the following:[1]
"Early in spring, as soon as the dry and apparently desert prairie had begun to change its coat of dingy brown to one of palest green, the horizon would begin to be dotted with buffalo, single or in groups of two or three, forerunners of the coming herd. Thicker and thicker and in larger groups they come, until by the time the grass is well up the whole vast landscape appears a mass of buffalo, some individuals feeding, others standing, others lying down, but the herd moving slowly, moving constantly to the northward.***Some years, as in 1871, the buffalo appeared to move northward in one immense column oftentimes from 20 to 50 miles in width, and of unknown depth from front to rear. Other years the northward journey was made in several parallel columns, moving at the same rate, and with their numerous flankers covering a width of a hundred or more miles.
"The line of march of this great spring migration was not always the same, though it was confined within certain limits. I am informed by old frontiersmen that it has not within twenty-five years crossed the Arkansas River east of Great Bend nor west of Big Sand Creek. The most favored routes crossed the Arkansas at the mouth of Walnut Creek, Pawnee Fork, Mulberry Creek, the Cimarron Crossing, and Big Sand Creek.
"As the great herd proceeds northward it is constantly depleted, numbers wandering off to the right and left, until finally it is scattered in small herds far and wide over the vast feeding grounds, where they past the summer.
"When the food in one locality fails they go to another, and towards fall, when the grass of the high prairie becomes parched by the heat and drought, they gradually work their way back to the south, concentrating on the rich pastures of Texas and the Indian Territory, whence, the same instinct acting on all, they are ready to start together on the northward march as soon as spring starts the grass."
- ↑ Our Wild Indians, p. 233, et seq.
