Deleted in Revision: "those famous guides to travellers and engineers"

"Buffalo, Thermopolis, WY"

Photo Credit:  Penny Clayton

Compare this, from the March 1853 installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border":

"After remounting, yesterday, we threaded the labyrinth before us by aid of the river and old paths of the buffaloes,—those famous guides to travellers and engineers.— One would say there had been war there, among what our fathers called the elements."
(March 1853)

With the same passage as revised for the 1857 book, Scenes and Adventures in the Army:

"July 8th.—After remounting yesterday, we threaded the labyrinth before us by aid of the river, and old paths of the buffalo. One would say there had been war there, among what our fathers called the elements."  (388)

What's wrong with emphasizing in broader terms the usefulness of buffalo paths?  Why bother to edit out the seemingly harmless reference to "travellers and engineers"?

Particularly suggestive is the reference to engineers.  The narrative at this point closely follows that of engineer William B. Franklin in his journal of the 1845 Kearny expedition, March to South Pass:

"By keeping along a buffalo path we have a very  little difficulty in getting down....Keeping along the bank for about a mile, we crossed the river just above the Hot Spring gate, again using a buffalo path to guide us. Just as we arrived at the top of the hill two buffalos rushed past us, descending on the other side with a sure footedness and swiftness wonderful for such unwieldy animals.  They looked fiercer and more dangerous than those we met on the plains, and some remarked that they were the demons of the Mts:  certainly they looked the character." 
(March to South Pass, ed. Frank N. Schubert, Engineer Historical Studies No. 1, p21)

The reference to engineers was deleted perhaps because if retained it might draw uncomfortable attention to the expropriation of material from the journal of a topographical engineer.  William B. Franklin's sighting of two buffaloes had been rewritten once before already, in the previous installment of  "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" (September 1852):

"Unwillingly we turn away, to seek a circuitous outlet, guided by buffalo paths over a lower mountain of confused and many-shaped peaks. At the highest part two monstrous buffaloes suddenly met us in the way:  the gaunt keepers of the pass paused in astonishment, and seemed to stare the question, "What did we there?" or, "Where are we safe?" thought they — if buffaloes think."  (September 1852) 

Amazing! how the rewrite imagines the perspective of the buffaloes, whereas Franklin more conventionally and straightforwardly reports the viewpoint of the human observers.