Blowhard, Esq. writes:

“The Adam and Eve of America,” published by W. T. Ridgley Calendar Co., Great Falls, Montana, 1907

Finally after a couple of weeks’ travel the distant mountains of the west came into view.

This was the land of the buffalo. One day a herd came in our direction like a great black cloud, a threatening moving mountain, advancing toward us very swiftly and with wild snorts, noses almost to the ground and tails flying in midair. I haven’t any idea how many there were but they seemed to be innumerable and made a deafening terrible noise. As is their habit, when stampeding, they did not turn out of their course for anything. Some of our wagons were within their line of advance and in consequence one was completely demolished and two were overturned. Several persons were hurt, one child’s shoulder being dislocated, but fortunately no one was killed.

Two of these buffaloes were shot and the humps and tongues furnished us with fine fresh meat. They happened to be buffalo cows and, in consequence, the meat was particularly good flavor and tender. It is believed that the cow can run faster than the bull. The large bone of the hind leg, after being stripped of the flesh, was buried in coals of buffalo chips and in an hour the baked marrow was served. I have never tasted such a rich, delicious food!

One family “jerked” some of the hump. After being cut into strips about an inch wide it was strung on ropes on the outside of the wagon cover and in two or three days was thoroughly cured. It was then packed in a bag and in the Humboldt Sink, when rations were low it came in very handy. Spite of having hung in the alkali dust and being rather shriveled looking, it was relished for when hunger stares one in the face one isn’t particular about trifles like that…

Buffalo chips, when dry, were very useful to us as fuel. On the barren plains when we were without wood we carried empty bags and each pedestrian “picked up chips” as he, or she, walked along. Indeed we could have hardly got along without thus useful animal, were always appropriating either his hump, tongue, marrowbone, tallow, skin, or chips!

— from the diary of Catherine Haun, who travelled from Iowa to California in 1849, Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel