Sincerely Yours, Buffalo Jones

Rim and had built the first suspension bridge across the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Wooley seemed to like Jones, perhaps sensing in him another man of somewhat like mind, and introduced him to Ernest Pratt, son of the U.S. Forest Service supervisor for the area. Wooley then got a wagon and together the two Arizonans gave Buffalo Jones a tour of the incredibly beautiful and rich high country of endless forests and lush meadows.

Jones was overwhelmed and enthralled with the prospects of setting up a buffalo refuge in a place "so wild and remote that civilization could never intrude." He was also anxious to start his cattalo hybridizing project again. In fact, he talked about it at such length and with such enthusiasm that his two guides were swept up in the excitement. Before the trip was over the three Jones, Wooley, and Pratt agreed to form a development company.

The next year President Roosevelt officially established the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve, and Jones and company got to work. The arrangement called for the government to furnish the land and loan a few buffalo from the Yellowstone Park herd and Jones in turn, would furnish the know-how and the rest of the livestock.

As far as the private cattalo project was concerned, the partners financed their venture by issuing stock certificates for the proposed company, a portion of which were accepted by Wooley in exchange for some of his range heifers. The fledgling company then traded these animals for the Scottish Galloway heifers needed for breeding.

In June of 1906 the first shipment of 57 buffalo arrived at the whistle-stop of Lund, Utah, from the same Texas ranch where Jones had gotten his first buffalo. They were in fairly good condition and made the trail drive of 175 miles With no unusual delays. In a short time, they were contentedly munching on the tall summer grass on the west side of the Buckskin Mountains, where they were held through the first winter.

Unfortunately, the second shipment of 30 animals arrived in very poor condition. They were part of Jones' original herd and had passed through various owners through the years, finally ending up on a ranch in Monterey, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Accustomed to the cool ocean breezes, the animals still had their thick wooly coats when they began the long ride across the desert between the Coast and Utah. Exhausted and heat-stricken, they stumbled off the railroad cars and collapsed.

Jimmy Owens, who had joined Jones by now, knew a lot about stock and he was pessimistic. "Well, Boss," he addressed Jones, "looks like these animals ain't going nowhere. I suggest we try to sell 'em off for steaks before they keel over for good."

But Jones was adamant. He recognized some of those animals as calves he'd captured, and he could still remember the rope burns, the scraped skin, and the total exhaustion he'd suffered to get them in the first place. No way was he going to sell them off cheap at this point in the game.

After trying every cuss word he knew and kicking the animals in the haunches in an effort to get them moving, the buffalo remained unimpressed and stood as unmoveable as the very boulders that surrounded them.

Jones sat and rested his head on his arms as the fierce sun bore down, shrouding the party in heat waves. It wasn't defeat. He was just thinking. Shortly he leaped to his feet and yelped, "I've got it! If these animals want to sleep in the daytime, let them. We'll drive them at night, when it's cool. Before nightfall Jimmy Owens located two wagons and loaded them with sheaves of wheat, purchased from Mormon farmers. Then as the freshness of evening came on, the two determined entrepreneurs started up the wagons and began throwing out wheat to the hungry animals, who reluctantly began to follow. Slowly and painstakingly, traveling during the nights and resting during the scorching days, the caravan wound its way through the burning red sands of the Escalante Desert, ending up, finally, in the cool mountains. Luckily, most of the animals survived the trip and joined the earlier group.

The next summer the herd was driven up to the piney Kaibab Plateau. When

Epilogue

While researching this article, I corraled a friend to make the trek to House Rock Valley ranch with me, “to see the buffalo” and learn more about them first hand. On the way, we prepared ourselves for the fact that we might not see herds of buffalo, and might not see any buffalo at all.

On the ranch road we passed one lone and elderly buffalo bull, standing as quietly as if he were a statue. No longer part of the herd, he had been cast out by the younger, more vigorous males, yet he retained his dignity. He didn't give us so much as a glance just stared off at the mountains to the west.

At the ranch house we were told that a fragment of the herd had been seen that morning heading toward a waterhole, and if we were to follow a bumpy dirt road leading into the range, we just might get a glimpse of them. For two hours we propelled our car over hills, through pastures and into small canyons, to be rewarded finally by a view of three black specks so far in the distance that we couldn't really be sure they were buffalo. It looked like maybe our lonely bull was going to be the sum total of our experience. Then as we turned the car around for the drive back to the highway, we noticed in the far distance a dark splotch against the golden scrub. A quick look with the field glasses told us that at last we'd found the buffalo. So, we once again turned the car around and as quickly as possible drove back again past the ranch house and the watering tank, over the bedrock bumps, up and down hills and through pastures until, cresting a hill, we saw a small herd of about 30 adult buffalo and five frisky calves calmly meandering up the road, about 200 yards in front of us.

With as little commotion as possible we stopped the car and climbed on the hood to watch the parade. We were upwind from them so they could not smell us, although they were obviously aware that something had entered their territory. Through the field glasses we could see their black, wet noses turned up and sniffing to see just who or what these intruders might be.

While they ambled on toward us, a medium-sized bull caught our eye as he stopped to roll in a dust pit, ridding himself of the last remnants of his lightcolored winter coat, which clung to him like a tattered, worn blanket.

As we watched his slender legs wave wildly in the air, the herd reached us. Up close they were huge and we couldn't help feeling a little uneasy. Soundlessly, for many long minutes, we did nothing but stare back at them, smelling their musky wildness as they arranged themselves in a circle around us. Then I coughed and the wary creatures started, whipping around and quickly trotting off a short distance to look back at us.

That brought to a close my initial education. They were brute beasts and probably worthless, that was all that was to it.

Several weeks later, in the Phoenix offices of Don Berlinski, State Wildlife Area Supervisor, I learned a little more about the life-style of the buffalo, and got one unexpected little story that made me turn a corner in my mind and view the animal from an entirely new vantage point.

Because 90 per cent of the buffalo cows calve every year typical of wild animals the size of the herd must be controlled to suit available food supply. So every fall a “cropping” or controlled hunt is held, open only to Arizona residents.

In accord with the ways of nature and good management techniques, the oldest and weakest animals are those they try to eliminate from the herd each autumn. But try as they might to arrange these events in a purely scientific manner, sometimes the buffalo themselves and not men have the final say.

There are several old bulls who come down out of the mountains every summer to seek out the watering tanks, about the time the mountain springs begin to dry up, says Berlinski. But after the late summer rains and just about roundup time, they disappear back into the far reaches of the wilderness again and manage to stay hidden there until after the fall hunt. With a shake of his head Berlinski admits, “You can search everywhere and still not find those old bulls. We know they're up there, but they're smarter than we are. There's grass and hidden springs that we don't even know about. That's where they're probably hiding out.” As I left Berlinski's office I remembered the old buffalo bull I'd seen at House Rock Ranch. Yes, I thought, manage the herd correctly, scientifically, but let some of those old codgers stay around. Probably great-greatgrandsons of Jones' original herd, they're part of the legacy that the old plainsman left to the people of Arizona. Let those old bulls wander around those hidden springs and eat the flowers and fresh grasses as a living monument to old C. J. “Buffalo” Jones, one of the worst enemies and, at last, the best friend the buffalo ever had.