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The Buffalo Harvest
from the Foreword
When Frank H. Mayer died in Fairplay, Colorado, in February, 1954, the last of the great buffalo hunters, or runners, as they preferred to call themselves, although they never ran a buffalo in their lives, left the scene. He was the last of the hardy group who practically obliterated a breed of animals. He was 104.
I met him first in 1932, when I wrote a condensed version of what you will read in this book. It appeared in several magazines, focussed attention on a phase of Western life that was practically forgotten. All sorts of myths had sprung up about buffalo hunting and hunters. Mayer's straightforward and authentic account of how it was actually done dispelled them.
This story is his full story of his years on the buffalo ranges.
When Frank H. Mayer died in Fairplay, Colorado, in February, 1954, the last of the great buffalo hunters, or runners, as they preferred to call themselves, although they never ran a buffalo in their lives, left the scene. He was the last of the hardy group who practically obliterated a breed of animals. He was 104.
I met him first in 1932, when I wrote a condensed version of what you will read in this book. It appeared in several magazines, focussed attention on a phase of Western life that was practically forgotten. All sorts of myths had sprung up about buffalo hunting and hunters. Mayer's straightforward and authentic account of how it was actually done dispelled them.
This story is his full story of his years on the buffalo ranges.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 24, 2025
3.4
Blunt, and probably honest. This hasn't been cleaned up by any cautious editor, so it's painful to read.
For example, ...
p 74: I am loath to talk of encounters with the Indians, the poor cusses, because they were always so distasteful to me, ...
p 79: Three bucks were busily engaged in lashing a big quantity of grass and dry brush on the back of a miserable pony, ... "That's a fire pony," McRae explained. "They're going to set fire to the pony's load, when it's dark enough, and drive it into our horse herd and stampede the whole bunch; they they'll pick off what they can of us. We'll fool the sonsabitches."
p 93: Maybe we runners served our purpose in helping abolish the buffalo; maybe it was our ruthless harvesting of him which telescoped the control of the Indian by a decade or maybe more.
Blunt, and probably honest. This hasn't been cleaned up by any cautious editor, so it's painful to read.
For example, ...
p 74: I am loath to talk of encounters with the Indians, the poor cusses, because they were always so distasteful to me, ...
p 79: Three bucks were busily engaged in lashing a big quantity of grass and dry brush on the back of a miserable pony, ... "That's a fire pony," McRae explained. "They're going to set fire to the pony's load, when it's dark enough, and drive it into our horse herd and stampede the whole bunch; they they'll pick off what they can of us. We'll fool the sonsabitches."
p 93: Maybe we runners served our purpose in helping abolish the buffalo; maybe it was our ruthless harvesting of him which telescoped the control of the Indian by a decade or maybe more.
July 25, 2025
"I don't know if you're familiar with shooters, or the "gun nuts," as they're rightly called. We represent a part of humanity that is never satisfied, always wanting something better than what we've already got. I was no exception. There I was, with my whole array of fine rifles (...) that could kill anything walking on the American continent, including Indians—and I did shoot a few with my Sharps. But I was dissatisfied, unhappy, and frustrated. And do you know why? Christian Sharps had announced he had a new rifle (...) I simply had to have one."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews