for a beast of their size and structure to pass except at the cost of broken limbs or a broken neck. On the bluffs of the Musselshell river I found places where they had leaped down bare ledges three or four feet in height with nothing but ledges of rocks for a landing-place; sometimes, too, through passages between high rocks but little wider than the thickness of their own bodies, with also a continuous precipitous descent for many feet below. Nothing in their history ever surprised me more than this revelation of their expertness and fearlessness in climbing."[1]
Ordinarily the buffalo laid out his road with commendable sagacity, "usually choosing the easiest grades and the most direct courses, so that a buffalo trail can be depended upon as affording the most feasible road possible through the region it traverses."[2] This was because their weight demanded the most stable courses and they were thus very sure of avoiding
