They were woolly. They were mammoth. But they weren’t the elephantine anachronisms Jefferson expected. Still, they were a wonder. On the Great Plains Lewis tells of “immense herds...in every direction,” and says the bison were “so gentle that we pass near them....without appearing to excite any alarm.”

Their plenty was a boon to the Plains Indians. To them, the bison was food, shelter, tools, ornaments, clothing—a way of life. An estimated 60 million bison roamed the pre-Lewis and Clark plains. By 1900 white sportsmen had reduced their number to fewer than 300 in the States. Today there are some 250,000 bison on the plains.