Pursuit in the Black Hills

The animal behind the fence at the Lansing (Mich.) zoo was an ancient beast with an eye like an undertaker's doorknob, but there was point-free meat all over him. Ed Butters, who had gone over to Lansing from his farm at Coldwater, had read all about buffalo, and now he had seen one. Last week, 14 months later, steak-hungry New Yorkers were buying the first carload of Butters' buffalo at prices as high as $1.25 a pound.

Slow-talking, 36-year-old Farmer Butters did not launch his odd scheme without encountering certain difficulties. First he had to find some buffalo. The Government finally agreed to sell him a herd then roaming the Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota. Then bankers were skittish about lending him the purchase price. Butters mortgaged his two farms and bought the herd.

Early this winter he discovered that his herd was in the Black Hills, 45 miles from the nearest railroad. He also discovered that the buffalo is an extremely morose animal, but despite his look of ennui can dodge like a scalded cat, run up & down hills all day.

Butters tried chasing the beasts on foot with a mule whip--a process complicated by the necessity of hugging trees to keep his quarry from killing him. Finally, with the help of four other men and a hard-won technique, he drove 32 young buffalo into a corral.

It took a long time to butcher them. The enclosure was a mile and a half long, and when a buffalo was shot, the rest ran the length of it, stayed there until Butters caught up again. A blizzard blew up, and coyotes gathered to jeer from the hilltops.

In spite of his experiences, Butters was still a buffalo enthusiast last week. He was planning to ship two more carloads of meat to market this winter, load the rest of his herd into railroad cars and ship them 1,000 miles to his 230-acre Michigan farm. There he hoped to dehorn them, fatten them with corn, sell 100 young animals annually for meat.

To warn the curious trespasser against the buffalo's antisocial attitude, he had already painted fence signs bearing the legend: "Certain Death Inside."

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