“There’s a distant hum,” she said. “You’re on the plain, on the shore of a river, and you’re fixing your lunch when all of a sudden you hear a hum, a muffled sound that gets louder. The first thing that occurs to you is that there’s a storm brewing . . . You glance anxiously at the sky, but it’s blue and there’s not a sign of a cloud on the horizon. But the muffled sound is still getting louder . . . You begin to understand that it’s coming from the other end of the plain, so you leave your meal and climb a hill and try to see what’s going on. First you see a big cloud of dust that reminds you of a sand storm in the desert, like you see in the movies, then you can make out some black dots, many, many black dots, all moving; the black dots gradually get bigger and you can see that it’s an enormous herd of buffalo. There are so many that the entire plain can’t contain them all. They’re running away from something: a grass fire or Indian hunters. The buffalo gallop across the plain and as they pass your hill, their heavy hooves pounding the earth, it’s like an earthquake.”

The girl recalled that there were almost sixty million buffalo before the arrival of the white man. In those days the Plains Indians hunted only for subsistence, and the hunt was accompanied by ritual ceremonies.

She did not approve of all their methods, in particular the one that consisted of leading a herd to a high cliff from which the animals would hurl themselves and break their bones. But, in general, she thought that the Indians hunted buffalo in an honourable manner. Then, too, while the white man often killed the buffalo for its fur or its tongue, the Indians used every part of the animal.

“The buffalo provided the Indians with everything they needed,” said the girl, becoming more animated. “That’s why the extermination of the buffalo meant the disappearance of the Plains Indians.”

She told how the Indians used buffalo hides to make tents, clothing, blankets and canoes; the horns and hooves for glue, knives, spoons and drinking cups; the muscles, tendons and hair for braided straps and belts; the bones for sled runners; the gastric juices and blood to prepare medicines. The list was endless, and as the girl talked, Jack was more and more convinced that if there was a Plains Indian, just in front of the hill that gave a view of the herd, killing a buffalo with an arrow or a well-aimed bullet behind the shoulder, and if the squaws were arriving to cut up the carcass, soon all that would be left of the great beast would be a little dried blood in the grass and a few tufts of hair.