Page:The red book of animal stories.djvu/391

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FAIRY RINGS
369

hunting. So out he goes on his snow-shoes, which prevent his sinking into the drifts, piled up by the wind to a great depth in the hollow places. The huge buffalo, which has no snow-shoes, conies thoughtlessly down from feeding on the grass tracts which the wind has blown bare, and flounders straight in. Once there he cannot get out again, and the Indian comes up and plunges his lance right into his heart, so that he is dead in a moment. Then his skin, always in its best condition during the winter, is sold to traders in fur, and the parts of the flesh which the hunter does not want, or cannot carry away, are left to the wolves.[1]

  1. All this was true years ago. Now, for want of Game Laws, buffaloes are nearly extinct.