In old days, and in one or two very out-of-the-way places almost to the present time, he wandered at will over the plains.

It is only the wariness born of fear which nowadays causes him to cling to the thick brush of the large river-bottoms throughout the plains country.

When there were no rifle-bearing hunters in the land, to harass him and make him afraid, he roved thither and thither at will, in burly self-confidence.

Then he cared little for cover, unless as a weather-break, or because it happened to contain food he liked.

If the humor seized him he would roam for days over the rolling or broken prairie, searching for roots, digging up gophers, or perhaps following the great buffalo herds either to prey on some unwary straggler which he was able to catch at a disadvantage in a washout, or else to feast on the carcasses of those which died by accident.