Dead Bison on the Prairie

Description

Maximilian noted in his journal that while hunting buffalo near Fort Union on October 11, the hunters often stood in their stirrups and shot from this position while running their horses at a full gallop. He remarked that they usually killed their quarry with a single shot, adding that "they quickly toss the powder into the barrel without wadding it; they keep the bullets in their mouths and let one roll onto the powder where it sticks firmly .... The bull into whose colossal body I too shot a few bullets, whenever I could stop, certainly received twenty shots before he fell down beyond the distant summits and perished."