The prongbuck is the most characteristic and distinctive of American game animals. Zoologically speaking, its position is unique. It is the only hollow-horned ruminant which sheds its horns, or rather the horn sheaths. We speak of it as an antelope, and it does of course represent on our prairies the antelopes of the Old World; but it stands apart from all other horned animals. Its place in the natural world is almost as lonely as that of the giraffe. In all its ways and habits it differs as much from deer and elk as from goat and sheep. Now that the buffalo has gone, it is the only game really at home on the wide plains. It is a striking-looking little creature, with its prominent eyes, single-pronged horns, and the sharply contrasted white, brown and reddish of its coat. The brittle hair is stiff, coarse and springy; on the rump it is brilliantly white, and is erected when the animal is alarmed or excited, so as to be very conspicuous. In marked contrast to deer, antelope never seek to elude observation; all they care for is to be able themselves to see. As they have good noses and wonderful eyes, and as they live by preference where there is little or no cover, shots at them are usually obtained at far longer range than is the case with other game; and yet, as they are easily seen, and often stand looking at the hunter just barely within very long rifle-range, they are always tempting their pursuer to the expenditure of cartridges. More shots are wasted at antelope than at any other game. They would be even harder to secure were it not that they are subject to fits of panic folly, or excessive curiosity, which occasionally put them fairly at the mercy of the rifle-bearing hunter.

In the old days the prongbuck was found as soon as the westward-moving traveller left the green bottom-lands of the Mississippi, and from thence across to the dry, open valleys of California, and northward to Canada and southward into Mexico. It has everywhere been gradually thinned out, and has vanished altogether from what were formerly the extreme easterly and westerly limits of its range. The rates of extermination of the different kinds of big game have been very unequal in different localities. Each kind of big game has had its own peculiar habitat in which it throve best, and each has also been found more or less plentifully in other regions where the circumstances were less favorable; and in these comparatively unfavorable regions it early tends to disappear before the advance of man. In consequence, where the ranges of the different game animals overlap and are intertwined, one will disappear first in one locality, and another will disappear first where the conditions are different. Thus the whitetail deer had thrust forward along the very narrow river bottoms into the domain of the mule-deer and the prongbuck among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and in these places it was exterminated from the narrow strips which it inhabited long before the mule-deer vanished from the high hills, or the prongbuck from the great open plains. But along great portions of the Missouri there are plenty of whitetails yet left in the river bottoms, while the mule-deer that once dwelt in the broken hills behind them, and the prongbuck which lived on the prairie just back of these bluffs, have both disappeared. In the same way the mule-deer and the prongbuck are often found almost intermingled through large regions in which plains, hills, and mountains alternate. If such a region is mainly mountainous, but contains a few valleys and table-lands, the prongbuck is sure to vanish from the latter before the mule-deer vanishes from the broken country. But if the region is one primarily of plains, with here and there rows of rocky hills in which the mule-deer is found, the latter is killed off long before the prongbuck can be hunted out of the great open stretches. The same is true of the pronghorn and the wapiti. The size and value of the wapiti make it an object of eager persecution on the part of hunters. But as it can live in the forest-clad fastnesses of the Rockies, into which settlement does not go, it outlasts over great regions the pronghorn, whose abode is easily penetrated by sheep and cattle men. Under anything like even conditions, however, the prongbuck, of course, outlasts the wapiti. This was the case on the Little Missouri. On that stream the bighorn also outlasted the wapiti. In 1881 wapiti were still much more plentiful than bighorns. Within the next decade they had almost totally disappeared, while the bighorn was still to be found; I shot one and saw others in 1893, at which time I had not authentic information of a single wapiti remaining anywhere on the river in my neighborhood, although it is possible that one or two still lurked in some out-of-the-way recess. In Colorado at one time the bighorn was nearly exterminated, while the wapiti still withstood the havoc made among its huge herds; then followed a period in which the rapidity of destruction of the wapiti increased far beyond that of the bighorn.

I mention these facts partly because they are of interest in themselves, but chiefly because they tend to explain the widely different opinions expressed by competent observers about what superficially seem to be similar facts. It cannot be too often repeated that allowance must be made for the individual variability in the traits and characters of animals of the same species, and especially of the same species under different circumstances and in different localities; and allowance must also be made for the variability of the individual factor in the observers themselves. Many seemingly contradictory observations of the habits of deer, wapiti, and prongbuck will be found in books by the best hunters. Take such questions as the keenness of sight of the deer as compared with the prongbuck, and of the pugnacity of the wapiti, both actual and relative, and a wide difference of opinion will be found in three such standard works as Dodge’s “The Hunting-grounds of the Great West,” Caton’s “Deer and Antelope of America,” and the contributions of Mr. Grinnell to the “Century Book of Sports.” Sometimes the difference will be in mere matters of opinion, as, for instance, in the belief as to the relative worth of the sport furnished by the chase of the different creatures; but sometimes there is a direct conflict of fact. Colonel Dodge, for instance, has put it upon record that the wapiti is an exceedingly gentle animal, less dangerous than a whitetail or blacktail buck in a close encounter, and that the bulls hardly ever fight among themselves. My own experience leads me to traverse in the most emphatic manner every one of these conclusions, and all hunters whom I have met feel exactly as I do; yet no one would question for a moment Colonel Dodge’s general competency as an observer. In the same way Mr. Grinnell has a high opinion of the deer’s keenness of sight. Judge Caton absolutely disagrees with him, and my own experience tends to agree with that of the Judge—at least to the extent of placing the deer’s vision far below that of the prongbuck and even that of the bighorn, and only on a par with that of the wapiti. Yet Mr. Grinnell is an unusually competent observer, whose opinion on any such subject is entitled to unqualified respect.

Difference in habits may be due simply to difference of locality, or to the need of adaptation to new conditions. The prongbuck’s habits about migration offer examples of the former kind of difference. Over portions of its range the prongbuck is not migratory at all. In other parts the migrations are purely local. In yet other regions the migrations are continued for great distances, immense multitudes of the animals going to and fro in the spring and fall along well-beaten tracks. I know of one place in New Mexico where the pronghorn herds are tenants of certain great plains throughout the entire year. I know another region in northwestern Colorado where the very few prongbucks still left, though they shift from valley to valley, yet spend the whole year in the same stretch of rolling, barren country. On the Little Missouri, however, during the eighties and early nineties, there was a very distinct though usually local migration. Before the Black Hills had been settled they were famous wintering places for the antelope, which swarmed from great distances to them when cold weather approached; those which had summered east of the Big Missouri actually swam the river in great herds, on their journey to the Hills. The old hunters around my ranch insisted that formerly the prongbuck had for the most part travelled from the Little Missouri Bad Lands into the Black Hills for the winter.

When I was ranching on that river, however, this custom no longer obtained, for the Black Hills were too well settled, and the herds of prongbuck that wintered there were steadily diminishing in numbers. At that time, from 1883 to 1896, the seasonal change in habits, and shift of position, of the prongbucks were well marked. As soon as the new grass sprang they appeared in great numbers upon the plains. They were especially fond of the green, tender blades that came up where the country had been burned over. If the region had been devastated by prairie fires in the fall, the next spring it was certain to contain hundreds and thousands of prongbucks. All through the summer they remained out on these great open plains, coming to drink at the little pools in the creek beds, and living where there was no shelter of any kind. As winter approached they began to gather in bands. Some of these bands apparently had regular wintering places to the south of us, in Pretty Buttes and beyond; and close to my ranch, at the crossing of the creek called Beaver, there were certain trails which these antelope regularly travelled, northward in the spring and southward in the fall. But other bands would seek out places in the Bad Lands near by, gathering together on some succession of plateaus which were protected by neighboring hills from the deep drifts of snow. Here they passed the winter, on short commons, it is true (they graze, not browsing like deer), but without danger of perishing in the snowdrifts. On the other hand, if the skin-hunters discovered such a wintering place, they were able to butcher practically the entire band, if they so desired, as the prongbucks were always most reluctant to leave such a chosen ground.

Normally the prongbuck avoids both broken ground and timber. It is a queer animal, with keen senses, but with streaks of utter folly in its character. Time and again I have known bands rush right by me, when I happened to surprise them feeding near timber or hills, and got between them and the open plains. The animals could have escaped without the least difficulty if they had been willing to go into the broken country, or through even a few rods of trees and brush; and yet they preferred to rush madly by me at close range, in order to get out to their favorite haunts. But nowadays there are certain localities where the prongbucks spend a large part of their time in the timber or in rough, hilly country, feeding and bringing up their young in such localities.

Typically, however, the prongbuck is preeminently a beast of the great open plains, eating their harsh, dry pasturage, and trusting to its own keen senses and speed for its safety. All the deer are fond of skulking; the whitetail preeminently so. The prongbuck, on the contrary, never endeavors to elude observation. Its sole aim is to be able to see its enemies, and it cares nothing whatever about its enemies seeing it. Its coloring is very conspicuous, and is rendered still more so by its habit of erecting the white hair on its rump. It has a very erect carriage, and when it thinks itself in danger it always endeavors to get on some crest or low hill from which it can look all about. The big bulging eyes, situated at the base of the horns, scan the horizon far and near like twin telescopes. They pick out an object at such a distance that it would entirely escape the notice of a deer. When suspicious, they have a habit of barking, uttering a sound something like “kau,” and repeating it again and again, as they walk up and down, endeavoring to find out if danger lurks in the unusual object. They are extremely curious, and in the old days it was often possible to lure them toward the hunter by waving a red handkerchief to and fro on a stick, or even by lying on one’s back and kicking the legs. Nowadays, however, there are very few localities indeed in which they are sufficiently unsophisticated to make it worth while trying these time-honored tricks of the long-vanished trappers and hunters.

Along the Little Missouri the fawns, sometimes one and sometimes two in number, were dropped in May or early in June. At that time the antelope were usually found in herds which the mother did not leave until she was about to give birth to the fawn. During the first few days the fawn’s safety is to be found only in its not attracting attention. During this time it normally lies perfectly flat on the ground, with its head outstretched, and makes no effort to escape. While out on the spring round-up I have come across many of these fawns. Once, in company with several cowboys, I was riding behind a bunch of cattle which, as we hurried them, spread out in open order ahead of us. Happening to cast down my eyes I saw an antelope fawn directly ahead of me. The bunch of cattle had passed all around it, but it made not the slightest sign, not even when I halted, got off my pony, and took it up in my arms. It was useless to take it to camp and try to rear it, and so I speedily put it down again. Scanning the neighborhood, I saw the doe hanging about some half a mile off, and when I looked back from the next divide I could see her gradually drawing near to the fawn.

If taken when very young, antelope make cunning and amusing pets, and I have often seen them around the ranches. There was one in the ranch of a Mrs. Blank who had a station on the Deadwood stage line some eighteen years ago. She was a great worker in buckskin, and I got her to make me the buckskin shirt I still use. There was an antelope fawn that lived at the house, wandering wherever it wished; but it would not permit me to touch it. As I sat inside the house it would come in and hop up on a chair, looking at me sharply all the while. No matter how cautiously I approached, I could never put my hand upon it, as at the last moment it would spring off literally as quick as a bird would fly. One of my neighbors on the Little Missouri, Mr. Howard Eaton, had at one time upon his ranch three little antelope whose foster-mother was a sheep, and who were really absurdly tame. I was fond of patting them and of giving them crusts, and the result was that they followed me about so closely that I had to be always on the lookout to see that I did not injure them. They were on excellent terms with the dogs, and were very playful. It was a comic sight to see them skipping and hopping about the old ewe when anything happened to alarm her and she started off at a clumsy waddle. Nothing could surpass the tameness of the antelope that are now under Mr. Hornaday’s care at the Bronx Zoological Garden in New York. The last time that I visited the garden some repairs were being made inside the antelope enclosure, and a dozen workmen had gone in to make them. The antelope regarded the workmen with a friendliness and curiosity untempered by the slightest touch of apprehension. When the men took off their coats the little creatures would nose them over to see if they contained anything edible, and they would come close up and watch the men plying the pick with the utmost interest. Mr. Hornaday took us inside, and they all came up in the most friendly manner. One or two of the bucks would put their heads against our legs and try to push us around, but not roughly. Mr. Hornaday told me that he was having great difficulty, exactly as with the mule-deer, in acclimatizing the antelope, especially as the food was so different from what they were accustomed to in their native haunts.

The wild fawns are able to run well a few days after they are born. They then accompany the mother everywhere. Sometimes she joins a band of others; more often she stays alone with her fawn, and perhaps one of the young of the previous year, until the rut begins. Of all game the prongbuck seems to me the most excitable during the rut. The males run the does much as do the bucks of the mule and whitetail deer. If there are no does present, I have sometimes watched a buck run to and fro by himself. The first time I saw this I was greatly interested, and could form no idea of what the buck was doing. He was by a creek bed in a slight depression or shallow valley, and was grazing uneasily. After a little while he suddenly started and ran just as hard as he could, off in a straight direction, nearly away from me. I thought that somehow or other he had discovered my presence; but he suddenly wheeled and came back to the original place, still running at his utmost speed. Then he halted, moved about with the white hairs on his rump outspread, and again dashed off at full speed, halted, wheeled, and came back. Two or three times he did this, and let me get very close to him before he discovered me. I was too much interested in what he was doing to desire to shoot him.

In September, sometimes not earlier than October, the big bucks begin to gather the does into harems. Each buck is then constantly on the watch to protect his harem from outsiders, and steal another doe if he can get a chance. I have seen a comparatively young buck who had appropriated a doe, hustle her hastily out of the country as soon as he saw another antelope in the neighborhood; while, on the other hand, a big buck, already with a good herd of does, will do his best to appropriate any other that comes in sight. The bucks fight fearlessly but harmlessly among themselves, locking their horns and then pushing as hard as they can.

Although their horns are not very formidable weapons, they are bold little creatures, and if given a chance will stand at bay before either hound or coyote. A doe will fight most gallantly for her fawn, and is an overmatch for a single coyote, but of course she can do but little against a large wolf. The wolves are occasionally very destructive to the herds. The cougar, however, which is a much worse foe than the wolf to deer and mountain sheep, can but rarely molest the prongbuck, owing to the nature of the latter’s haunts. Eagles, on occasion, take the fawns, as they do those of deer.

I have always been fond of the chase of the prongbuck. While I lived on my ranch on the Little Missouri it was, next to the mule-deer, the game which I most often followed, and on the long wagon strips which I occasionally took from my ranch to the Black Hills, to the Big Horn Mountains, or into eastern Montana, prongbuck venison was our usual fresh meat, save when we could kill prairie-chickens and ducks with our rifles, which was not always feasible. In my mind the prongbuck is always associated with the open prairies during the spring, summer, or early fall. It has happened that I have generally pursued the bighorn in bitter weather; and when we laid in our stock of winter meat, mule-deer was our usual game. Though I have shot prongbuck in winter, I never liked to do so, as I felt the animals were then having a sufficiently hard struggle for existence anyhow. But in the spring the meat of the prongbuck was better than that of any other game, and, moreover, there was not the least danger of mistaking the sexes, and killing a doe accidentally, and accordingly I rarely killed anything but pronghorns at that season. In those days we never got any fresh meat, whether on the ranch or while on the round-up or on a wagon trip, unless we shot it, and salt pork became a most monotonous diet after a time.

Occasionally I killed the prongbuck in a day’s hunt from my ranch. If I started with the intention of prongbuck hunting, I always went on horseback; but twice I killed them on foot when I happened to run across them by accident while looking for mule-deer. I shall always remember one of these occasions. I was alone in the Elkhorn ranch-house at the time, my foreman and the only cow-puncher who was not on the round-up having driven to Medora, some forty miles away, in order to bring down the foreman’s wife and sister, who were going to spend the summer with him. It was the fourth day of his absence. I expected him in the evening and wanted to have fresh meat, and so after dinner I shouldered my rifle and strolled off through the hills. It was too early in the day to expect to see anything, and my intention was simply to walk out until I was five or six miles from the ranch, and then work carefully home through a likely country toward sunset, as by this arrangement I would be in a good game region at the very time that the animals were likely to stir abroad. It was a glaring, late-spring day, and in the hot sun of mid-afternoon I had no idea that anything would be moving, and was not keeping a very sharp lookout. After an hour or two’s steady tramping I came into a long, narrow valley, bare of trees and brushwood, and strolled along it, following a cattle trail that led up the middle. The hills rose steeply into a ridge crest on each side, sheer clay shoulders breaking the mat of buffalo-grass which elsewhere covered the sides of the valley as well as the bottom. It was very hot and still, and I was paying but little attention to my surroundings, when my eye caught a sudden movement on the ridge crest to my right, and, dropping on one knee as I wheeled around, I saw the head and neck of a prongbuck rising above the crest. The animal was not above a hundred yards off, and stood motionless as it stared at me. At the crack of the rifle the head disappeared; but as I sprang clear of the smoke I saw a cloud of dust rise on the other side of the ridge crest, and felt convinced that the quarry had fallen. I was right. On climbing the ridge crest I found that on the other side it sank abruptly in a low cliff of clay, and at the foot of this, thirty feet under me, the prongbuck lay with its neck broken. After dressing it I shouldered the body entire, thinking that I should like to impress the new-comers by the sight of so tangible a proof of my hunting prowess as whole prongbuck hanging up in the cottonwoods by the house. As it was a well-grown buck the walk home under the hot sun was one of genuine toil.

The spot where I ran across this prongbuck was miles away from the nearest plains, and it was very unusual to see one in such rough country. In fact, the occurrence was wholly exceptional; just as I once saw three bighorn rams, which usually keep to the roughest country, deliberately crossing the river bottom below my ranch, and going for half a mile through the thick cottonwood timber. Occasionally, however, parties of prongbuck came down the creek bottoms to the river. Once I struck a couple of young bucks in the bottom of a creek which led to the Chimney Butte ranch-house, and stalked them without difficulty; for as prongbuck make no effort to hide, if there is good cover even their sharp eyes do not avail them. On another occasion several does and fawns, which we did not molest, spent some time on what we called “the corral bottom,” which was two or three miles above the ranch-house. In the middle of this bottom we had built a corral for better convenience in branding the calves when the round-up came near our ranch—as the bottom on which the ranch-house stood was so thickly wooded as to make it difficult to work cattle thereon. The does and fawns hung around the corral bottom for some little time, and showed themselves very curious and by no means shy.

When I went from the ranch for a day’s prongbuck hunting of set purpose, I always rode a stout horse and started by dawn. The prongbucks are almost the only game that can be hunted as well during the heat of the day as at any other time. They occasionally lie down for two or three hours about noon in some hollow where they cannot be seen, but usually there is no place where they are sure they can escape observation even when resting; and when this is the case they choose a somewhat conspicuous station and trust to their own powers of observation, exactly as they do when feeding. There is therefore no necessity, as with deer, of trying to strike them at dawn or dusk. The reason why I left the ranch before sunrise and often came back long after dark was because I had to ride at least a dozen miles to get out to the ground and a dozen to get back, and if after industrious walking I failed at first to find my game, I would often take the horse again and ride for an hour or two to get into new country. Prongbuck water once a day, often travelling great distances to or from some little pool or spring. Of course, if possible, I liked to leave the horse by such a pool or spring. On the great plains to which I used to make these excursions there was plenty of water in early spring, and it would often run, here and there, in the upper courses of some of the creeks—which, however, usually contained running water only when there had been a cloudburst or freshet. As the season wore on the country became drier and drier. Water would remain only in an occasional deep hole, and few springs were left in which there was so much as a trickle. In a strange country I could not tell where these water-holes were, but in the neighborhood of the ranch I of course knew where I was likely to find them. Often, however, I was disappointed; and more than once after travelling many miles to where I hoped to find water, there would be nothing but sun-cracked mud, and the horse and I would have eighteen hours of thirst in consequence. A ranch horse, however, is accustomed to such incidents, and of course when a man spends half the time riding, it is merely a matter of slight inconvenience to go so long without a drink.

Nevertheless, if I did reach a spring, it turned the expedition into pleasure instead of toil. Even in the hot weather the ride toward the plains over the hills was very lovely. It was beautiful to see the red dawn quicken from the first glimmering gray in the east, and then to watch the crimson bars glint on the tops of the fantastically shaped barren hills when the sun flamed, burning and splendid, above the horizon. In the early morning the level beams threw into sharp relief the strangely carved and channelled cliff walls of the buttes. There was rarely a cloud to dim the serene blue of the sky. By the time the heat had grown heavy I had usually reached the spring or pool, where I unsaddled the horse, watered him, and picketed him out to graze. Then, under the hot sun, I would stride off for the hunting proper. On such occasions I never went to where the prairie was absolutely flat. There were always gently rolling stretches broken by shallow watercourses, slight divides, and even low mounds, sometimes topped with strangely shaped masses of red scoria or with petrified trees. My object, of course, was, either with my unaided eyes or with the help of my glasses, to catch sight of the prongbucks before they saw me. I speedily found, by the way, that if they were too plentiful this was almost impossible. The more abundant deer are in a given locality the more apt one is to run across them, and of course if the country is sufficiently broken, the same is true of prongbucks; but where it is very flat and there are many different bands in sight at the same time, it is practically impossible to keep out of sight of all of them, and as they are also all in sight of one another, if one flees the others are certain to take the alarm. Under such circumstances I have usually found that the only pronghorns I got were obtained by accident, so to speak; that is, by some of them unexpectedly running my way, or by my happening to come across them in some nook where I could not see them, or they me.

Prongbucks are very fast runners indeed, even faster than deer. They vary greatly in speed, however, precisely as is the case with deer; in fact, I think that the average hunter makes altogether too little account of this individual variation among different animals of the same kind. Under the same conditions different deer and antelope vary in speed and wariness, exactly as bears and cougars vary in cunning and ferocity. When in perfect condition a full-grown buck antelope, from its strength and size, is faster and more enduring than an old doe; but a fat buck, before the rut has begun, will often be pulled down by a couple of good greyhounds much more speedily than a flying yearling or two-year-old doe. Under favorable circumstances, when the antelope was jumped near by, I have seen one overhauled and seized by a first-class greyhound; and, on the other hand, I have more than once seen a pronghorn run away from a whole pack of just as good dogs. With a fair start, and on good ground, a thoroughbred horse, even though handicapped by the weight of a rider, will run down an antelope; but this is a feat which should rarely be attempted, because such a race, even when carried to a successful issue, is productive of the utmost distress to the steed.

Ordinary horses will sometimes run down an antelope which is slower than the average. I once had on my ranch an under-sized old Indian pony named White Eye, which, when it was fairly roused, showed a remarkable turn of speed, and had great endurance. One morning on the round-up, when for some reason we did not work the cattle, I actually ran down an antelope in fair chase on this old pony. It was a nursing doe, and I came over the crest of the hill, between forty and fifty yards away from it. As it wheeled to start back, the old cayuse pricked up his ears with great interest, and the moment I gave him a sign was after it like a shot. Whether, being a cow-pony, he started to run it just as if it were a calf or a yearling trying to break out of the herd, or whether he was overcome by dim reminiscences of buffalo-hunting in his Indian youth, I know not. At any rate, after the doe he went, and in a minute or two I found I was drawing up to her. I had a revolver, but of course did not wish to kill her, and so got my rope ready to try to take her alive. She ran frantically, but the old pony, bending level to the ground, kept up his racing lope and closed right in beside her. As I came up she fairly bleated. An expert with the rope would have captured her with the utmost ease; but I missed, sending the coil across her shoulders. She again gave an agonized bleat, or bark, and wheeled around like a shot. The cow-pony stopped almost, but not quite, as fast, and she got a slight start, and it was some little time before I overhauled her again. When I did I repeated the performance, and this time when she wheeled she succeeded in getting on some ground where I could not follow, and I was thrown out.

Normally, a horseman without greyhounds can hope for nothing more than to get within fair shooting range; and this only by taking advantage of the prongbucks’ peculiarity of running straight ahead in the direction in which they are pointed, when once they have settled into their pace. Usually, as soon as they see a hunter they run straight away from him; but sometimes they make their flight at an angle, and as they do not like to change their course when once started, it is thus possible, with a good horse, to cut them off from the point toward which they are headed, and get a reasonably close shot.

I have done a good deal of coursing with greyhounds at one time or another, but always with scratch packs. There are a few ranchmen who keep leashes of greyhounds of pure blood, bred and trained to antelope coursing, and who do their coursing scientifically, carrying the dogs out to the hunting-grounds in wagons and exercising every care in the sport; but these men are rare. The average man who dwells where antelope are sufficiently abundant to make coursing a success, simply follows the pursuit at odd moments, with whatever long-legged dogs he and his neighbors happen to have; and his methods of coursing are apt to be as rough as his outfit. My own coursing was precisely of this character. At different times I had on my ranch one or two high-classed greyhounds and Scotch deerhounds, with which we coursed deer and antelope, as well as jack-rabbits, foxes, and coyotes; and we usually had with them one or two ordinary hounds, and various half-bred dogs. I must add, however, that some of the latter were very good. I can recall in particular one fawn-colored beast, a cross between a greyhound and a foxhound, which ran nearly as fast as the former, though it occasionally yelped in shrill tones. It could also trail well, and was thoroughly game; on one occasion it ran down and killed a coyote single-handed.

On going out with these dogs, I rarely chose a day when I was actually in need of fresh meat. If this was the case, I usually went alone with the rifle; but if one or two other men were at the ranch, and we wanted a morning’s fun, we would often summon the dogs, mount our horses, and go trooping out to the antelope-ground. As there was good deer-country between the ranch bottom and the plains where we found the prongbuck, it not infrequently happened that we had a chase after blacktail or whitetail on the way. Moreover, when we got out to the ground, before sighting antelope, it frequently happened that the dogs would jump a jack-rabbit or a fox, and away the whole set would go after it, streaking through the short grass, sometimes catching their prey in a few hundred yards, and sometimes having to run a mile or so. In consequence, by the time we reached the regular hunting-ground the dogs were apt to have lost a good deal of their freshness. We would get them in behind the horses and creep cautiously along, trying to find some solitary prongbuck in a suitable place, where we could bring up the dogs from behind a hillock and give them a fair start. Usually we failed to get the dogs near enough for a good start; and in most cases their chases after unwounded prongbuck resulted in the quarry running clean away from them. Thus the odds were greatly against them; but, on the other hand, we helped them wherever possible with the rifle. We usually rode well scattered out, and if one of us put up an antelope, or had a chance at one when driven by the dogs, he always fired, and the pack were saved from the ill effects of total discouragement by so often getting these wounded beasts. It was astonishing to see how fast an antelope with a broken leg could run. If such a beast had a good start, and especially if the dogs were tired, it would often lead them a hard chase, and the dogs would be utterly exhausted after it had been killed; so that we would have to let them lie where they were for a long time before trying to lead them down to some stream-bed. If possible, we carried water for them in canteens.

There were red-letter days, however, on which our dogs fairly ran down and killed unwounded antelope—days when the weather was cool, and when it happened that we got our dogs out to the ground without their being tired by previous runs, and found our quarry soon, and in favorable places for slipping the hounds. I remember one such chase in particular. We had at the time a mixed pack, in which there was only one dog of my own, the others being contributed from various sources. It included two greyhounds, a rough-coated deerhound, a foxhound, and the fawn-colored cross-bred mentioned above.

We rode out in the early morning, the dogs trotting behind us; and, coming to a low tract of rolling hills, just at the edge of the great prairie, we separated and rode over the crest of the nearest ridge. Just as we topped it, a fine buck leaped up from a hollow a hundred yards off, and turned to look at us for a moment. All the dogs were instantly spinning toward him down the grassy slope. He apparently saw those at the right, and, turning, raced away from us in a diagonal line, so that the left-hand greyhound, which ran cunning and tried to cut him off, was very soon almost alongside. He saw her, however—she was a very fast bitch—just in time, and, wheeling, altered his course to the right. As he reached the edge of the prairie, this alteration nearly brought him in contact with the cross-bred, which had obtained a rather poor start, on the extreme right of the line. Around went the buck again, evidently panic-struck and puzzled to the last degree, and started straight off across the prairie, the dogs literally at his heels, and we, urging our horses with whip and spur, but a couple of hundred yards behind. For half a mile the pace was tremendous, when one of the greyhounds made a spring at his ear, but failing to make good his hold, was thrown off. However, it halted the buck for a moment, and made him turn quarter round, and in a second the deerhound had seized him by the flank and thrown him, and all the dogs piled on top, never allowing him to rise.

Later we again put up a buck not far off. At first it went slowly, and the dogs hauled up on it; but when they got pretty close, it seemed to see them, and letting itself out, went clean away from them almost without effort.

Once or twice we came upon bands of antelope, and the hounds would immediately take after them. I was always rather sorry for this, however, because the frightened animals, as is generally the case when beasts are in a herd, seemed to impede one another, and the chase usually ended by the dogs seizing a doe, for it was of course impossible to direct them to any particular beast.

It will be seen that with us coursing was a homely sport. Nevertheless we had good fun, and I shall always have enjoyable memories of the rapid gallops across the prairie, on the trail of a flying prongbuck.

Usually my pronghorn hunting has been done while I have been off with a wagon on a trip intended primarily for the chase, or else while travelling for some other purpose.

All life in the wilderness is so pleasant that the temptation is to consider each particular variety, while one is enjoying it, as better than any other. A canoe trip through the great forests, a trip with a pack-train among the mountains, a trip on snowshoes through the silent, mysterious fairyland of the woods in winter—each has its peculiar charm. To some men the sunny monotony of the great plains is wearisome; personally there are few things I have enjoyed more than journeying over them where the game was at all plentiful. Sometimes I have gone off for three or four days alone on horseback, with a slicker or oilskin coat behind the saddle, and some salt and hardtack as my sole provisions. But for comfort on a trip of any length it was always desirable to have a wagon. My regular outfit consisted of a wagon and team driven by one man who cooked, together with another man and four riding ponies, two of which we rode, while the other two were driven loose or led behind the wagon. While it is eminently desirable that a hunter should be able to rough it, and should be entirely willing to put up with the bare minimum of necessities, and to undergo great fatigue and hardship, it is yet not at all necessary that he should refrain from comfort of a wholesome sort when it is obtainable. By taking the wagon we could carry a tent to put up if there was foul weather. I had a change of clothes to put on if I was wet, two or three books to read—and nothing adds more to the enjoyment of a hunting trip—as well as plenty of food; while having two men made me entirely foot-loose as regards camp, so that I could hunt whenever I pleased, and, if I came in tired, I simply rested, instead of spending two or three hours in pitching camp, cooking, tethering horses, and doing the innumerable other little things which in the aggregate amount to so much.

On such a trip, when we got into unknown country, it was of course very necessary to stay near the wagon, especially if we had to hunt for water. But if we knew the country at all, we would decide in the morning about where the camp was to be made in the afternoon, and then I would lope off on my own account, while the wagon lumbered slowly across the rough prairie sward straight toward its destination. Sometimes I took the spare man with me, and sometimes not. It was convenient to have him, for there are continually small emergencies in which it is well to be with a companion. For instance, if one jumps off for a sudden shot, there is always a slight possibility that any but a thoroughly trained horse will get frightened and gallop away. On some of my horses I could absolutely depend, but there were others, and very good ones too, which would on rare occasions fail me; and few things are more disheartening than a long stern chase after one’s steed under such circumstances, with the unpleasant possibility of seeing him leave the country entirely and strike out for the ranch fifty or sixty miles distant. If there is a companion with one, all danger of this is over. Moreover, in galloping at full speed after the game it is impossible now and then to avoid a tumble, as the horse may put his leg into a prairie-dog hole or badger burrow; and on such occasions a companion may come in very handily. On the other hand, there is so great a charm in absolute solitude, in the wild, lonely freedom of the great plains, that often I would make some excuse and go off entirely by myself.

Such rides had a fascination of their own. Hour after hour the wiry pony shuffled onward across the sea of short, matted grass. On every side the plains stretched seemingly limitless. Sometimes there would be no object to break the horizon; sometimes across a score of miles there would loom through the clear air the fantastic outlines of a chain of buttes, rising grim and barren. Occasionally there might be a slightly marked watercourse, every drop of moisture long dried; and usually there would not be as much as the smallest sage-brush anywhere in sight. As the sun rose higher and higher the shadows of horse and rider shortened, and the beams were reflected from the short, bleached blades until in the hot air all the landscape afar off seemed to dance and waver. Often on such trips days went by without our coming across another human being, and the loneliness and vastness of the country seemed as unbroken as if the old vanished days had returned—the days of the wild wilderness wanderers, and the teeming myriads of game they followed, and the scarcely wilder savages against whom they warred.

Now and then prongbuck would appear, singly or in bands; and their sharp bark of alarm or curiosity would come to me through the still, hot air over great distances, as they stood with head erect looking at me, the white patches on their rumps shining in the sun, and the bands and markings on their heads and necks showing as if they were in livery. Scan the country as carefully as I would, they were far more apt to see me than I was them, and once they had seen me, it was normally hopeless to expect to get them. But their strange freakishness of nature frequently offsets the keenness of their senses. At least half of the prongbucks which I shot were obtained, not by stalking, but by coming across them purely through their own fault. Though the prairie seemed level, there was really a constant series of undulations, shallow and of varying width. Now and then as I topped some slight rise I would catch a glimpse of a little band of pronghorns feeding, and would slip off my horse before they could see me. A hasty determination as to where the best chance of approaching them lay would be followed by a half-hour’s laborious crawl, a good part of the time flat on my face. They might discover me when I was still too far for a shot; or by taking advantage of every little inequality I might get within long range before they got a glimpse of me, and then in a reasonable proportion of cases I would bag my buck. At other times the buck would come to me. Perhaps one would suddenly appear over a divide himself, and his curiosity would cause him to stand motionless long enough to give me a shot; while on other occasions I have known one which was out of range to linger around, shifting his position as I shifted mine, until by some sudden gallop or twist I was able to get close enough to empty my magazine at him.

When the shadows had lengthened, but before any coolness had come into the air, I would head for the appointed camping-place. Sometimes this would be on the brink of some desolate little pool under a low, treeless butte, or out on the open prairie where the only wood was what we had brought with us. At other times I would find the wagon drawn up on the edge of some shrunken plains river, under a line of great cottonwoods with splintered branches and glossy leaves that rustled all day long. Such a camp was always comfortable, for there was an abundance of wood for the fire, plenty of water, and thick feed in which the horses grazed—one or two being picketed and the others feeding loose until night came on. If I had killed a prongbuck, steaks were speedily sizzling in the frying-pan over the hot coals. If I had failed to get anything, I would often walk a mile or two down or up the river to see if I could not kill a couple of prairie-chickens or ducks. If the evening was at all cool, we built a fire as darkness fell, and sat around it, while the leaping flames lit up the trunks of the cottonwoods and gleamed on the pools of water in the half-dry river bed. Then I would wrap myself in my blanket and lie looking up at the brilliant stars until I fell asleep.

In both 1893 and 1894 I made trips to a vast tract of rolling prairie land, some fifty miles from my ranch, where I had for many years enjoyed the keen pleasure of hunting the prongbuck. In 1893 the prong-horned bands were as plentiful in this district as I have ever seen them anywhere. Lambert was with me; and in a week’s trip, including the journey out and back, we easily shot all the antelope we felt we had any right to kill; for we only shot to get meat, or an unusually fine head. Lambert did most of the shooting; and I have never seen a professional hunter do better in stalking antelope on the open prairie. I myself fired at only two antelope, both of which had already been missed. In each case a hard run and much firing at long ranges, together with in one case some skilful manœuvring, got me my game; yet one buck cost ten cartridges and the other eight. In 1894 I had exactly the reverse experience. I killed five antelope for thirty-six shots, but each one that I killed was killed with the first bullet, and in not one case where I missed the first time did I hit with any subsequent shot. These five antelope were killed at an average distance of about 150 yards. Those that I missed were, of course, much farther off on an average, and I usually emptied my magazine at each. The number of cartridges spent would seem extraordinary to a tyro; and an unusually skilful shot, or else a very timid shot who fears to take risks, will of course make a better showing per head killed; but I doubt if men with experience in antelope hunting, who keep an accurate account of the cartridges they expend, will see anything much out of the way in the performance.

During the years I have hunted in the West I have always, where possible, kept a record of the number of cartridges expended for every head of game killed, and of the distances at which it was shot. I have found that with bison, bear, moose, elk, caribou, bighorn and white goat, where the animals shot at were mostly of large size and usually stationary, and where the mountainous or wooded country gave chance for a close approach, the average distance at which I have killed the game has been eighty yards, and the average number of cartridges expended per head slain, three; one of these representing the death-shot, and the others standing either for misses outright, of which there were not many, or else for wounding game which escaped, or which I afterward overtook, or for stopping cripples or charging beasts. I have killed but two peccaries, using but one cartridge for each; they were close up. My experiences with cougar have already been narrated. At wolves and coyotes I have generally had to take running shots at very long range, and I have shot but two—one of each—for fifty cartridges. Blacktail deer I have generally shot at about ninety yards, at an expenditure of about four cartridges apiece. Whitetail I have killed at shorter range; but the shots were generally running, often taken under difficult circumstances, so that my expenditure of cartridges was rather larger. Antelope, on the other hand, I have on the average shot at a little short of 150 yards, and they have cost me about nine cartridges apiece. This, of course, as I have explained above, does not mean that I have missed eight out of nine antelope, for often the entire nine cartridges would be spent at an antelope which I eventually got. It merely means that, counting all the shots of every description fired at antelope, I had one head to show for each nine cartridges expended.

Thus, the first antelope I shot in 1893 cost me ten cartridges, of which three hit him, while the seven that missed were fired at over 400 yards’ distance while he was running. We saw him while we were with the wagon. As we had many miles to go before sunset, we cared nothing about frightening other game, and, as we had no fresh meat, it was worth while to take some chances to procure it. When I first fired, the prongbuck had already been shot at and was in full flight. He was beyond all reasonable range, but some of our bullets went over him and he began to turn. By running to one side I got a shot at him at a little over 400 paces, as he slowed to a walk, bewildered by the firing, and the bullet broke his hip. I missed him two or three times as he plunged off, and then by hard running down a watercourse got a shot at 180 paces and broke his shoulder, and broke his neck with another bullet when I came up.

This one was shot while going out to the hunting-ground. While there Lambert killed four others. I did not fire again until on our return, when I killed another buck one day while we were riding with the wagon. The day was gray and overcast. There were slight flurries of snow, and the cold wind chilled us as it blew across the endless reaches of sad-colored prairie. Behind us loomed Sentinel Butte, and all around the rolling surface was broken by chains of hills, by patches of bad lands, or by isolated, saddle-shaped mounds. The ranch wagon jolted over the uneven sward, and plunged in and out of the dry beds of the occasional water courses; for we were following no road, but merely striking northward across the prairie toward the P. K. ranch. We went at a good pace, for the afternoon was bleak, the wagon was lightly loaded, and the Sheriff of the county, whose deputy I had been, and who was serving for the nonce as our teamster and cook, kept the two gaunt, wild-looking horses trotting steadily. Lambert and I rode to one side on our unkempt cow-ponies, our rifles slung across the saddle bows.

Our stock of fresh meat was getting low and we were anxious to shoot something; but in the early hours of the afternoon we saw no game. Small parties of horned larks ran along the ground ahead of the wagon, twittering plaintively as they rose, and now and then flocks of long-spurs flew hither and thither; but of larger life we saw nothing, save occasional bands of range horses. The drought had been severe and we were far from the river, so that we saw no horned stock. Horses can travel much farther to water than cattle, and, when the springs dry up, they stay much farther out on the prairie.

At last we did see a band of four antelope, lying in the middle of a wide plain, but they saw us before we saw them, and the ground was so barren of cover that it was impossible to get near them. Moreover, they were very shy and ran almost as soon as we got our eyes on them. For an hour or two after this we jogged along without seeing anything, while the gray clouds piled up in the west and the afternoon began to darken; then, just after passing Saddle Butte, we struck a rough prairie road, which we knew led to the P. K. ranch—a road very faint in places, while in others the wheels had sunk deep in the ground and made long, parallel ruts.

Almost immediately after striking this road, on topping a small rise, we discovered a young prongbuck standing off a couple of hundred yards to one side, gazing at the wagon with that absorbed curiosity which in this game so often conquers its extreme wariness and timidity, to a certain extent offsetting the advantage conferred upon it by its marvellous vision. The little antelope stood broadside on, gazing at us out of its great bulging eyes, the sharply contrasted browns and whites of its coat showing plainly. Lambert and I leaped off our horses immediately, and I knelt and pulled trigger; but the cartridge snapped, and the little buck, wheeling round, cantered off, the white hairs on its rump standing erect. There was a strong cross-wind, almost a gale, blowing, and Lambert’s bullet went just behind him; off he went at a canter, which changed to a breakneck gallop, as we again fired; and he went out of sight unharmed, over the crest of the rising ground in front. We ran after him as hard as we could pelt up the hill, into a slight valley, and then up another rise, and again got a glimpse of him standing, but this time farther off than before; and again our shots went wild.

However, the antelope changed its racing gallop to a canter while still in sight, going slower and slower, and, what was rather curious, it did not seem much frightened. We were naturally a good deal chagrined at our shooting and wished to retrieve ourselves, if possible; so we ran back to the wagon, got our horses and rode after the buck. He had continued his flight in a straight line, gradually slackening his pace, and a mile’s brisk gallop enabled us to catch a glimpse of him, far ahead and merely walking. The wind was bad, and we decided to sweep off and try to circle round ahead of him. Accordingly, we dropped back, turned into a slight hollow to the right, and galloped hard until we came to the foot of a series of low buttes, when we turned more to the left; and, when we judged that we were about across the antelope’s line of march, leaped from our horses, threw the reins over their heads, and left them standing, while we stole up the nearest rise; and, when close to the top, took off our caps and pushed ourselves forward, flat on our faces to peep over. We had judged the distance well, for we saw the antelope at once, now stopping to graze. Drawing back, we ran along some little distance nearer, then drew up over the same rise. He was only about 125 yards off, and this time there was no excuse for my failing to get him; but fail I did, and away the buck raced again, with both of us shooting. My first two shots were misses, but I kept correcting my aim and holding farther in front of the flying beast. My last shot was taken just as the antelope reached the edge of the broken country, in which he would have been safe; and almost as I pulled the trigger I had the satisfaction of seeing him pitch forward and, after turning a complete somerset, lie motionless. I had broken his neck. He had cost us a good many cartridges, and, though my last shot was well aimed, there was doubtless considerable chance in my hitting him, while there was no excuse at all for at least one of my previous misses. Nevertheless, all old hunters know that there is no other kind of shooting in which so many cartridges are expended for every head of game bagged.

As we knelt down to butcher the antelope, the clouds broke and the rain fell. Hastily we took off the saddle and hams, and, packing them behind us on our horses, loped to the wagon in the teeth of the cold storm. When we overtook it, after some sharp riding, we threw in the meat, and not very much later, when the day was growing dusky, caught sight of the group of low ranch buildings toward which we had been headed. We were received with warm hospitality, as one always is in a ranch country. We dried our streaming clothes inside the warm ranch-house and had a good supper, and that night we rolled up in our blankets and tarpaulins, and slept soundly in the lee of a big haystack. The ranch-house stood in the winding bottom of a creek; the flanking hills were covered with stunted cedar, while dwarf cottonwood and box-elder grew by the pools in the half-dried creek bed.

Next morning we had risen by dawn. The storm was over, and it was clear and cold. Before sunrise we had started. We were only some thirty miles away from my ranch, and I directed the Sheriff how to go there, by striking east until he came to the main divide, and then following that down till he got past a certain big plateau, when a turn to the right down any of the coulees would bring him into the river bottom near the ranch-house. We wished ourselves to ride off to one side and try to pick up another antelope. However, the Sheriff took the wrong turn after getting to the divide, and struck the river bottom some fifteen miles out of his way, so that we reached the ranch a good many hours before he did.

When we left the wagon we galloped straight across country, looking out from the divide across the great rolling landscape, every feature standing clear through the frosty air. Hour after hour we paced and loped on and on over the grassy seas in the glorious morning. Once we stopped, and I held the horses while Lambert stalked and shot a fine prongbuck; then we tied his head and hams to our saddles and again pressed forward along the divide. We had hoped to get lunch at a spring that I knew of some twelve miles from my ranch, but when we reached it we found it dry and went on without halting. Early in the afternoon we came out on the broad, tree-clad bottom on which the ranch-house stands, and, threading our way along the cattle trails soon drew up in front of the gray empty buildings.

Just as we were leaving the hunting-grounds on this trip, after having killed all the game we felt we had a right to kill, we encountered bands of Sioux Indians from the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River reservations coming in to hunt, and I at once felt that the chances for much future sport in that particular district were small. Indians are not good shots, but they hunt in large numbers, killing everything, does, fawns and bucks alike, and they follow the wounded animals with the utmost perseverance, so that they cause much destruction of game.

Accordingly, in 1894, when I started for these same grounds, it was with some misgivings; but I had time only to make a few days’ hunt, and I knew of no other accessible grounds where prongbuck were plentiful. My foreman was with me, and, as usual, we took the ranch wagon, driven this time by a cowboy who had just come up over the trail with cattle from Colorado. On reaching our happy hunting-grounds of the previous season, I found my fears sadly verified; and one unforeseen circumstance, also told against me. Not only had the Indians made a great killing of antelope the season before, but in the spring one or two sheep men had moved into the country. We found that the big flocks had been moving from one spring pool to another, eating the pasturage bare, while the shepherds whom we met—wild-looking men on rough horses, each accompanied by a pair of furtive sheep dogs—had taken every opportunity to get a shot at antelope, so as to provide themselves with fresh meat. Two days of fruitless hunting in this sheep-ridden region was sufficient to show that the antelope were too scarce and shy to give us hope for sport, and we shifted quarters, a long day’s journey, to the head of another creek; and we had to go to yet another before we found much game. As so often happens on such a trip, when we started to have bad luck we had plenty. One night two of the three saddle horses stampeded and went straight as the crow flies back to the home range, so that we did not get them until on our return from the trip. On another occasion the team succeeded in breaking the wagon pole; and as there was an entire absence of wood where we were at the time, we had to make a splice for it with the two tent poles and the picket ropes. Nevertheless, it was very enjoyable out on the great grassy plains. Although we had a tent with us, I always slept in the open in my buffalo bag, with the tarpaulin to pull over me if it rained. On each night before going to sleep, I lay for many minutes gazing at the stars above, or watching the rising of the red moon, which was just at or past the full.

We had plenty of fresh meat—prairie fowl and young sage fowl at first, and antelope venison afterward. We camped by little pools, generally getting fair water; and from the camps where there was plenty of wood we took enough to build the fires at those where there was none. The nights were frosty, and the days cool and pleasant, and from sunrise to sunset we were off riding or walking among the low hills and over the uplands, so that we slept well and ate well, and felt the beat of hardy life in our veins.

Much of the time we were on a high divide between two creek systems, from which we could see the great landmarks of all the regions roundabout, Sentinel Butte, Square Butte and Middle Butte, far to the north and east of us. Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one and the faint afterglow of the red sunset filled the west. The endless waves of rolling prairie, sweeping, vast and dim, to the feet of the great hills, grew purple as the evening darkened, and the buttes loomed into vague, mysterious beauty as their sharp outlines softened in the twilight.

Even when we got out of reach of the sheep men we never found antelope very plentiful, and they were shy, and the country was flat, so that the stalking was extremely difficult; yet I had pretty good sport. The first animal I killed was a doe, shot for meat, because I had twice failed to get bucks at which I emptied my magazine at long range, and we were all feeling hungry for venison. After that I killed nothing but bucks. Of the five antelope killed, one I got by a headlong gallop to cut off his line of flight. As sometimes happens with this queer, erratic animal, when the buck saw that I was trying to cut off his flight he simply raced ahead just as hard as he knew how, and, as my pony was not fast, he got to the little pass for which he was headed 200 yards ahead of me. I then jumped off, and his curiosity made him commit the fatal mistake of halting for a moment to look round at me. He was standing end on, and offered a very small mark at 200 yards; but I made a good line shot, and, though I held a trifle too high, I hit him in the head, and down he came. Another buck I shot from under the wagon early one morning as he was passing just beyond the picketed horses. I have several times shot antelope which unexpectedly came into camp in this fashion. The other three I got after much manœuvring and long, tedious stalks.

In some of the stalks, after infinite labor, and perhaps after crawling on all-fours for an hour, or pulling myself flat on my face among some small sage-brush for ten or fifteen minutes, the game took alarm and went off. Too often, also, when I finally did get a shot, it was under such circumstances that I missed. Sometimes the game was too far; sometimes it had taken alarm and was already in motion; sometimes the trouble could only be ascribed to lack of straight powder, and I was covered with shame as with a garment. Once in the afternoon I had to spend so much time waiting for the antelope to get into a favorable place that, when I got up close, I found the light already so bad that my front sight glimmered indistinctly, and the bullet went wild. Another time I met with one of those misadventures which are especially irritating. It was at midday, and I made out at a long distance a band of antelope lying for their noon rest in a slight hollow. A careful stalk brought me up within fifty yards of them. I was crawling flat on my face, for the crest of the hillock sloped so gently that this was the only way to get near them. At last, peering through the grass, I saw the head of a doe. In a moment she saw me and jumped to her feet, and up stood the whole band, including the buck. I immediately tried to draw a bead on the latter, and to my horror found that, lying flat as I was, and leaning on my elbows, I could not bring the rifle above the tall shaking grass, and was utterly unable to get a sight. In another second away tore all the antelope. I jumped to my feet, took a snap shot at the buck as he raced round a low-cut bank and missed, and then walked drearily home, chewing the cud of my ill-luck. Yet again in more than one instance, after making a good stalk upon a band seen at some distance, I found it contained only does and fawns, and would not shoot at them.

Three times, however, the stalk was successful. Twice I was out alone; the other time my foreman was with me, and held my horse while I manœuvred hither and thither, and finally succeeded in getting into range. In both the first instances I got a standing shot, but on this last occasion, when my foreman was with me, two of the watchful does which were in the band saw me before I could get a shot at the old buck. I was creeping up a low washout, and, by ducking hastily down again and running back and up a side coulee, I managed to get within long range of the band as they cantered off, not yet thoroughly alarmed. The buck was behind, and I held just ahead of him. He plunged to the shot, but went off over the hill-crest. When I had panted up to the ridge I found him dead just beyond.

One of the antelope I killed while I was out on foot toward nightfall, a couple of miles from the wagon. I saw the prongbuck quite half a mile off, and though I dropped at once I was uncertain whether he had seen me. He was in a little hollow or valley. A long, smoothly sloping plateau led up to one edge of it. Across this plateau I crawled, and when I thought I was near the run I ventured slowly to look up, and almost immediately saw vaguely through the tops of the long grasses what I took to be the head and horns of the buck, looking in my direction. There was no use in going back, and I dropped flat on my face again and crawled another hundred yards, until it was evident that I was on the rise from which the plateau sank into the shallow valley beyond. Raising my head inch by inch, I caught sight of the object toward which I had been crawling, and after a moment’s hesitation recognized it as a dead sunflower, the stalks and blossoms so arranged as to be in a V shape. Completely puzzled, I started to sit up, when by sheer good luck I caught sight of the real prongbuck, still feeding, some three hundred yards off, and evidently unaware of my presence. It was feeding toward a slight hill to my left. I crept off until behind this, and then walked up until I was in line with a big bunch of weeds on its shoulder. Crawling on all-fours to the weeds, I peeped through and saw the prongbuck still slowly feeding my way. When he was but seventy yards off, I sat up and shot him; and trudged back to the wagon, carrying the saddle and hams.

In packing an antelope or deer behind the saddle, I cut slashes through the sinews of the legs just above the joints; then I put the buck behind the saddle, run the picket rope from the horn of the saddle, under the belly of the horse, through the slashes in the legs on the other side, bring the end back, swaying well down on it, and fasten it to the horn; then I repeat the same feat for the other side. Packed in this way, the carcass always rides steady, and cannot shake loose, no matter what antics the horse may perform.

In the fall of 1896 I spent a fortnight on the range with the ranch wagon. I was using for the first time one of the new small calibre, smokeless-powder rifles, with the usual soft-nosed bullet. While travelling to and fro across the range we usually moved camp each day, not putting up the tent at all during the trip; but at one spot we spent three nights. It was in a creek bottom, bounded on either side by rows of grassy hills, beyond which stretched the rolling prairie. The creek bed, which at this season was of course dry in most places, wound in S-shaped curves, with here and there a pool and here and there a fringe of stunted wind-beaten timber. We were camped near a little grove of ash, box-elder, and willow, which gave us shade at noonday; and there were two or three pools of good water in the creek bed—one so deep that I made it my swimming-bath.

The first day that I was able to make a hunt I rode out with my foreman, Sylvane Ferris. I was mounted on Muley. Twelve years before, when Muley was my favorite cutting pony on the round-up, he never seemed to tire or lose his dash, but Muley was now sixteen years old, and on ordinary occasions he liked to go as soberly as possible; yet the good old pony still had the fire latent in his blood, and at the sight of game—or, indeed, of cattle or horses—he seemed to regain for the time being all the headlong courage of his vigorous and supple youth.

On the morning in question it was two or three hours before Sylvane and I saw any game. Our two ponies went steadily forward at a single-foot or shack, as the cow-punchers term what Easterners call a “fox trot.” Most of the time we were passing over immense grassy flats, where the mat of short curled blades lay brown and parched under the bright sunlight. Occasionally we came to ranges of low barren hills, which sent off gently rounded spurs into the plain.

It was on one of these ranges that we first saw our game. As we were travelling along the divide we spied eight antelope far ahead of us. They saw us as soon as we saw them, and the chance of getting to them seemed small; but it was worth an effort, for by humoring them when they started, so as to let them wheel and zigzag before they became really frightened, and then, when they had settled into their run, by galloping toward them at an angle oblique to their line of flight, there was always some little chance of getting a shot. Sylvane was on a light buckskin horse, and I left him on the ridge crest to occupy their attention while I cantered off to one side. The pronghorns became uneasy as I galloped away, and ran off the ridge crest in a line nearly parallel to mine. They did not go very fast, and I held in Muley, who was all on fire at the sight of the game. After crossing two or three spurs, the antelope going at half speed, they found I had come closer to them, and turning, they ran up one of the valleys between two spurs. Now was my chance, and wheeling at right angles to my former course, I galloped Muley as hard as I knew how up the valley nearest and parallel to where the antelope had gone. The good old fellow ran like a quarter-horse, and when we were almost at the main ridge crest I leaped off, and ran ahead with my rifle at the ready, crouching down as I came to the sky-line. Usually on such occasions I find that the antelope have gone on, and merely catch a glimpse of them half a mile distant, but on this occasion everything went right. The band had just reached the ridge crest about 220 yards from me across the head of the valley, and had halted for a moment to look around. They were starting as I raised my rifle, but the trajectory is very flat with these small-bore smokeless-powder weapons, and taking a coarse front sight I fired at a young buck which was broadside to me. There was no smoke, and as the band raced away I saw him sink backward, the ball having broken his hips.

We packed him bodily behind Sylvane on the buckskin and continued our ride, as there was no fresh meat in camp, and we wished to bring in a couple of bucks if possible. For two or three hours we saw nothing. The unshod feet of the horses made hardly any noise on the stretches of sun-cured grass, but now and then we passed through patches of thin weeds, their dry stalks rattling curiously, making a sound like that of a rattlesnake. At last, coming over a gentle rise of ground, we spied two more prongbucks, half a mile ahead of us and to our right.

Again there seemed small chance of bagging our quarry, but again fortune favored us. I at once cantered Muley ahead, not toward them, but so as to pass them well on one side. After some hesitation they started, not straight away, but at an angle to my own course. For some moments I kept at a hand gallop, until they got thoroughly settled in their line of flight; then I touched Muley, and he went as hard as he knew how. Immediately the two panic-stricken and foolish beasts seemed to feel that I was cutting off their line of retreat, and raced forward at mad speed. They went much faster than I did, but I had the shorter course, and when they crossed me they were not fifty yards ahead—by which time I had come nearly a mile. At the pull of the rein Muley stopped short, like the trained cow-pony he is; I leaped off, and held well ahead of the rearmost and largest buck. At the crack of the little rifle down he went with his neck broken. In a minute or two he was packed behind me on Muley, and we bent our steps toward camp.

During the remainder of my trip we were never out of fresh meat, for I shot three other bucks—one after a smart chase on horseback, and the other two after careful stalks; and I missed two running shots.

The game being both scarce and shy, I had to exercise much care, and after sighting a band I would sometimes have to wait and crawl round for two or three hours before they would get into a position where I had any chance of approaching. Even then they were more apt to see me and go off than I was to get near them.