[Illustration: SPIKE BULL. From the group in the National Museum.
Reproduced from the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, by permission of the
publishers.]

It must be observed at this point that in many respects this animal is
an exceptionally fine one. In actual size of frame, and in quantity and
quality of pelage, it is far superior to the average, even of wild
buffaloes when they were most numerous and at their best.[30] In one
respect, however, that of actual bulk, it is believed that this specimen
may have often been surpassed. When buffaloes were numerous, and not
required to do any great amount of running in order to exist, they were,
in the autumn months, very fat. Audubon says: "A large bison bull will
generally weigh nearly 2,000 pounds, and a fat cow about 1,200 pounds.
We weighed one of the bulls killed by our party, and found it to reach
1,727 pounds, although it had already lost a good deal of blood. This
was an old bull, and not fat. It had probably weighed more at some
previous period."[31] Our specimen when killed (by the writer, December
6, 1886) was in full vigor, superbly muscled, and well fed, but he
carried not a single pound of fat. For years the never-ceasing race for
life had utterly prevented the secretion of useless and cumbersome fat,
and his "subsistence" had gone toward the development of useful muscle.
Having no means by which to weigh him, we could only estimate his
weight, in which I called for the advice of my cowboys, all of whom were
more or less familiar with the weight of range cattle, and one I
regarded as an expert. At first the estimated weight of the animal was
fixed at 1,700 pounds, but with a constitutional fear of estimating over
the truth, I afterward reduced it to 1,600 pounds. This I am now well
convinced was an error, for I believe the first figure to have been
nearer the truth.