The Last of the Plainsmen | Page 3

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Etext scanned by Mary Starr

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN
by
ZANE GREY

PREFATORY NOTE
Buffalo Jones needs no introduction to American sportsmen, but to
these of my readers who are unacquainted with him a few words may
not be amiss.
He was born sixty-two years ago on the Illinois prairie, and he has
devoted practically all of his life to the pursuit of wild animals. It has
been a pursuit which owed its unflagging energy and indomitable
purpose to a singular passion, almost an obsession, to capture alive, not
to kill. He has caught and broken the will of every well-known wild
beast native to western North America. Killing was repulsive to him.
He even disliked the sight of a sporting rifle, though for years necessity
compelled him to earn his livelihood by supplying the meat of buffalo
to the caravans crossing the plains. At last, seeing that the extinction of
the noble beasts was inevitable, he smashed his rifle over a wagon
wheel and vowed to save the species. For ten years he labored,
pursuing, capturing and taming buffalo, for which the West gave him
fame, and the name Preserver of the American Bison.
As civilization encroached upon the plains Buffalo Jones ranged slowly
westward; and to-day an isolated desert-bound plateau on the north rim
of the Grand Canyon of Arizona is his home. There his buffalo browse

with the mustang and deer, and are as free as ever they were on the
rolling plains.
In the spring of 1907 I was the fortunate companion of the old
plainsman on a trip across the desert, and a hunt in that wonderful
country of yellow crags, deep canyons and giant pines. I want to tell
about it. I want to show the color and beauty of those painted cliffs and
the long, brown-matted bluebell-dotted aisles in the grand forests; I
want to give a suggestion of the tang of the dry, cool air; and
particularly I want to throw a little light upon the life and nature of that
strange character and remarkable man, Buffalo Jones.
Happily in remembrance a writer can live over his experiences, and see
once more the moonblanched silver mountain peaks against the dark
blue sky; hear the lonely sough of the night wind through the pines;
feel the dance of wild expectation in the quivering pulse; the stir, the
thrill, the joy of hard action in perilous moments; the mystery of man's
yearning for the unattainable.
As a boy I read of Boone with a throbbing heart, and the silent
moccasined, vengeful Wetzel I loved.
I pored over the deeds of later men--Custer and Carson, those heroes of
the plains. And as a man I came to see the wonder, the tragedy of their
lives, and to write about them. It