The great rise in the price of robes which followed the blotting out of the great southern herd at once put buffalo-bunting on a much more comfortable and respectable business basis in the North than it had erer occupied in the South, where prices had all along been phenomenally low.
In Montana it was no uncommon thing for a hunter to inrest from $1,000 to $2,000 in his outfit” of horses, wagons, weapons, ammunition, provisions, and sundries.
One of the men who accompanied the Smithsonian Expedition for Buffalo, Mr. James McNaney, of Miles City, Montana, was an ex-buffalo hunter, who had spent three seasons on the northern range, killing buffalo for their robes, and his standing as a hunter was of the best. A brief description of his outfit and its work during its last season on on the range (1882–83) may fairly be taken as a typical illustration of the life and work of the still-hunter at its best. The only thing against it was the extermination of the buffalo.
During the winters of 1880 and 1881 Mr. McNaney had served in Maxwell's outfit as a hunter, working by the month, but his success in killing was such that he decided to work the third year on his own account. Although at that time only seventeen years of age, he took an elder brother as a partner, and purchased an outfit in Miles City, of which the following were the principal items: Two wagons, 2 four-horse teams, 2 saddle-horses, 2 wall-tents, 1 cook-stove with pipe, 1 40–90 Sharp's rifle (breech-loading), 1 45–70 Sharps rifle (breech-loading), 1 45–120 Sharps rifle (breech-loading), 50 pounds gunpowder, 550 pounds lead, 4,500 primers, 600 brass shells, 4 sheets patch-paper, 60 Wilson skinning knives, 3 butcher's steels, 1 portable grindstone, flour, bacon, bakingpowder, coffee, sugar, molasses, dried apples, canned vegetables, beans, etc., in quantity.
The entire cost of the outfit was about $1,400. Two men were hired for the season at $50 per month, and the party started from Miles City on November 10, which was considered a very late start. The usual time of setting out for the range was about October 1.
The outfit went by rail northeastward to Terry, and from thence across country south and east about 100 miles, around the head of O'Fallon Creek to the head of Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Little Missouri. A good range was selected, without enroachment upon the domains of the hunters already in the field, and the camp was made near the bank of the creek, close to a supply of wood and water, and screened from distant observation by a circle of hills and ridges. The two rectangular wall-tents were set up end to end, with the cook-store in the middle, where the ends came together. In one tent the cooking and eating was done, and the other contained the beds.
It was planned that the various members of the party should cook turn about, a week at a time, but one of them soon developed such a
