This attempt was made in the middle of October, when the calves were five or six months old and well grown. About thirty years later men from the same Spanish colony had improved their methods of capturing and raising buffalo: "They were not cattle that let themselves be rounded up, though as a means they take among them some of our tame cattle. And so, at the time of calving, the Spanish go to catch the little calves and bring them up with goats."
About 200 years later in the Red River Valley near Pembina, Alexander Henry found the young calves very easy to capture.
I killed four calves, of which I took only the thighs, and brought two calves home alive; they no sooner lost sight of the herd than they followed my horse like dogs, directly into the fort. On chasing a herd at this season, the calves follow until they are fatigued, when they throw themselves down in the high grass and lie still, hiding their heads if possible. On coming to them, they start to run, but seeing only the person and his horse, they remain quiet and allow themselves to be taken. Having been handled a little, they follow like dogs.
George Catlin at Fort Union reported that he would sometimes catch a very young calf, and breathe into its nostrils. Then when the calf was turned loose, it would follow him closely, attracted by his now-familiar scent. A hide hunter in the Texas Panhandle, Charlie Jones, reported taking young calves in the same manner.
Usually a captured calf would be killed for food within a day or two, for the men around a trading post had neither the means nor the inclination to raise such a pet. It is probable that the calves behaved gently only during the first month or so of their existence; Horace Greeley reported from Kansas in 1859:
A calf two or three months old is tied to a stake just beside our wagons. He was taken by rushing a herd up a steep creek bank, which so many could not possibly climb at once; this one was picked out in the melee as most worth having, and taken with a rope. Though fast-tied and with but a short tether he is true game, and makes at whatever goes near him with desperate intent to butt the intruder over.
The docility of the very young buffalo calves was a big factor in establishing small captive herds in various parts of the country after most of the wild herds had been killed. About eighty calves furnished the breeding stock for most of the buffalo alive today.
The first of the modern breeding herds was started in northwestern Montana almost by chance. In the fall of 1872, long before there was any serious concern about the survival of the buffalo, a young Pend d'Oreille Indian, Walking Coyote, went from the Flathead reservation to hunt buffalo in the Blackfoot country some 300 miles to the east, across the Rockies. Along the Milk River about where it crosses from Canada into Montana, Walking Coyote joined a friendly band of Piegans who were wintering there in good hunting country.
In the spring after the new calves arrived, the band staged a successful hunt, but which left some of the calves wandering, motherless and friendless, looking for company. Some of the strays joined a horse herd, and there Walking Coyote found them the next morning, among his horses. He decided to take them back to the Flathead country alive and start his own buffalo herd. He must have had some recently foaled mares to feed the calves, for there was no other possible source of milk.
The Indian agent at Browning was interested in the plan. He suggested that the calves be taken first to a ranch on the Sun River where a rancher friend would help. A hundred miles later the strange little cavalcade showed up at the ranch near Haystack Butte, Montana. The rancher took them in, and turned the calves in with his own cows to rest them up for the trek across the mountains.
From Sun River a rather easy trail led across the open range to the head of the Dearborn River and across the continental divide by way of Cadotte's Pass. On the west side the trail followed down the Big Blackfoot River to Hell's Gate, then northwest across the hills to the Flathead country, about 150 miles in all. Six of the calves, two bulls and four cows, survived the long journey in good condition and were placed on good range land on the Flathead reservation. In eleven years they had increased to thirteen head. Obviously there were some losses.
Buffalo calves for the second breeding herd were captured across the Canadian border about 300 miles to the northeast of where Walking Coyote discovered his strays. Some Indian hunters from the Winnipeg area found the calves in Manitoba and brought them back alive, one bull and four cows. They traded them to Tonka Jim McKay, a trader who must have had others, for he had twenty-three to sell to Sam L. Bedson in 1882, too many for just natural increase. Bedson kept the animals at Stony Mountain, Manitoba, and used some of them to crossbreed with domestic cattle. By 1888 he had a herd of fifty-eight buffalo and twenty-five hybrids. That November he sold all the buffalo to Charles J. Jones, later known as Buffalo Jones, of Garden City, Kansas, but a few of the tough old bulls escaped while they were being driven to the railroad shipping point.
The third breeding herd was started on impulse in the Palo Duro Canyon of the Texas Panhandle. Charles Goodnight moved into the canyon and started a cattle ranch in the 1870's, when there were still a few small bands of buffalo in the area. One day his cowboys brought in a buffalo calf with the range stock. Mrs. Goodnight had a special little pasture fenced for it. The cowboys brought in several more buffalo calves in the next few years to put in the pasture.
The fourth breeding herd was started according to a definite plan for the purpose of trying to cross the buffalo with cattle. Buffalo Jones had been a hide hunter around Dodge City in the 1870's, but quit hunting to become a prosperous rancher and businessman at Garden City. A hard winter, 1885-86, killed off some of the range cattle and inspired Jones to try to produce a more hardy breed of beef animal for the plains.
Jones went out with a good outfit and some helpers to rope buffalo calves in the summer of 1886. He was an expert roper and tied up fourteen calves for the wagon to pick up. The calves were fed condensed milk until they could be hauled back to the ranch, 300 miles away, where they were turned over to milk cows to raise. Four of the calves died on the way home, and Jones decided he would drive the foster-mother milk cows along on the next hunt. The cows and captive calves had little trouble adjusting to one another, and Jones returned with seven more calves in 1887.
His greatest success came in the summer of 1888. He expected to make a good catch and took along twenty cows, but soon he had thirty-two calves to feed. He found twenty more cows at a ranch in the area, which he bought at a rather high price, and all thirty-two calves survived the trip to the home ranch.
The next spring he was out on the range early and followed a small herd of cows, capturing the little calves as they were born, and ended with seven. He and his men roped and tied down seventeen buffalo cows in an attempt to take them back, but the cows fought themselves into exhaustion and all died within an hour or so after being roped. Jones then had his men follow a herd of twenty-one for about six weeks, keeping close to the buffalo day and night. When the animals had become accustomed to the horsemen, other riders came up with twenty-five tame buffalo from the home ranch and mixed them with the wild ones. The herd moved along easily until they approached the first ranches, then the wild ones broke and ran. Although the herders followed them until the buffalo had such sore and bleeding feet they could scarcely walk, they would not allow themselves to be driven and had to be left on the range.
At the end of this summer, 1889, Jones had fifty-six buffalo he had captured, plus a few calves born that year to his first catch. In addition he had the fifty-eight purchased from Sam Bedson, and a number of hybrids, which he called cattalo. Added to his colorful character, Jones had a flair for publicity and became known to the nation's press as Buffalo Jones.