Walking Coyote and The Buffalo Orphan

In 1872, a Pend d'Oreille Indian named Walking Coyote left his Flathead wife and traveled east to hunt with the Blackfeet. There he met and fell in love with a beautiful woman of that tribe and married her. In the spring he became homesick and decided to return to the west side of the mountain in company with his new wife and eight buffalo calves as a peace offering. The journey was difficult but successful although he received a severe beating from the Jesuit fathers who did not approve of bigamy.

He left the tribe but stayed in the Flathead Valley, raising the six surviving buffalo and these became the nucleus of a herd whose descendants now populate many herds in North America. He was one who saved the buffalo.