In his lifetime, Russell depicted the Indian buffalo hunt more than any other subject. He was fascinated by this legendary contest between man and animal, and he realized it represented, more than anything else could, the spirit of the wild frontier that was gone forever. Russell had arrived in Montana as a teenager in 1881, after the great buffalo herds had dwindled, and he witnessed the extermination of the animals in the wild just a few years later. He eventually learned many details of the buffalo hunt from his Indian friends, but he also was familiar with the artistic representations of the hunt by two important predecessors: George Catlin (1796–1872) and Carl Wimar (1828–1864). Russell owned copies of Catlin’s books, which described Indian buffalo hunts in vivid detail, and he used Catlin’s eyewitness descriptions as raw material for his own depictions. He also had seen Wimar’s paintings of buffalo hunts while growing up in Saint Louis.

In this painting the Blackfoot hunters, having cut off part of the herd, are attacking from two directions to force the frightened animals to turn into each other—a technique that minimized the danger of any riders or their horses being gored or trampled in the ensuing melee. On the left, a highly-trained “buffalo horse” surges up to the right of one animal and, in Catlin’s words, gives the rider the chance “to throw the arrow to the left, which he does at the instant the horse is passing—bringing him opposite the heart, which receives the deadly weapon.” On the right, a mounted warrior is set to drive his lance into another beast, which turns in desperation into the seething group. Although Russell’s depiction seems to be fairly accurate. Later Blackfoot commentators maintained that the riders always used saddles for greater safety.