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By Root 4234 0

Pacing about and waiting anxiously in full war feathers for the buffalo that October 18 was Quanah. The autumn leaves were beginning to drop from the elm trees. The lakes and other waters were filled with migratory birds. Just seeing the buffalo unloaded at the station choked Quanah up. For a moment he stood in silence. Then he quietly helped load the buffalo onto wagons for their thirteen-mile journey to the fresh green of the Wichita Mountains.111 When they were unloaded, a great dust cloud arose in the air. And what a homecoming it was to the Plains Indians! Native Americans boulder-hopped, booted it, rim-walked, and hit the trail, to watch these fifteen Bronx-raised buffalo run. To the Plains Indians, they were symbols of how their ancestors had once lived—free and in harmony with nature. From the Chickasaw Nation and the Cherokee Strip, from the Kansas border to Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, crowds arrived by the tens of thousands to witness the return of the “Great Spirit’s cattle” to the windblown Wichita preserve. Few thought about huge meat piles or dressing the hides. Watching the animals graze in the open air of Winter Valley was their catharsis. It seemed that every Indian lodge within a four-state region was represented—a tribute to the power of word of mouth. Small coals were lit and pipes were smoked. Grass was taken out of saddle packs for feed, but Frank Rush said no—these were buffalo, not pets.

Guardedly, Quanah poked at the buffalo’s rib cages like an agricultural inspector at a state fair, examining the Bronx Zoo herd carefully to make sure the “Great White Chief” wasn’t playing a trick. Quanah was a shrewd dealer, but he had been hoodwinked before by crooked buffalo hunters, cavalrymen, railroad barons, miners, cattle kings, farmers, and politicians. All of them were culpable in the destruction of the native buffalo. But not Roosevelt—not this time. Yes, these bison had black tongues and cloven hooves. Yes, they had unbranched horns. Knowing that buffalo have four stomachs, Quanah pointed the herd toward the rich grasses of the Wichita Forest and Game Preserve as if saying, “Eat away!” The extinction of the bison was starting to be reversed. Quanah now understood that no war club was strong enough to defeat a man of Roosevelt’s honest character. The “buffalo president” hadn’t broken his word.

Few presidential gestures meant more to Native Americans than these seven bulls and eight cows. A great thing had happened. This was a true token of peace, generosity, wisdom, and goodwill. It coincided with the departure of the last cavalry regiment from Fort Sill in 1907. At least for this afternoon the Plains Indians, thanks to Roosevelt, felt that their ancestors’ spirit had rumbled out of Mount Scott. The higher peak in the preserve—the only one higher than Mount Scott—was Mount Pinchot (2,464 feet), named in honor of the chief forester of the USDA’s Wichita Game Preserve. And it wasn’t just those lucky enough to be at the Wichitas who celebrated the buffalo’s reintroduction. Indians celebrated throughout the Great Plains. Old-timers recalled the days of high-protein bison meat at every meal. Then, every part of the buffalo had been used: the bladder (for food pouches), teeth (ornaments), blood (paints), dung (fuel), tendons (arrow strings), scrotum (containers), tail (switches), brains (hide preparation), and so on.112 There had been many accomplishments during Quanah’s career: fathering twenty-one children; fighting against the onslaught of white civilization; conducting shuttle diplomacy between the Wichitas and Washington, D.C. None, however, equaled the success of helping to bring the buffalo back to the Great Plains.113 “The buffalo have plenty of good green grass and pure running water,” Rush reported to Hornaday. “They did not have a tick on them last summer.”114

And Hornaday also sought other prairielands for buffalo to return to. In 1906, when Fort Niobrara Military Reservation in Nebraska closed (the U.S. Army was no longer worried about the Indian menace), the ABS stepped into the void. Following