Prongbuck 215 



to Butte de Sable :^^ "Cabrie were in sight almost every 

 moment, but so shy that we could not get a shot." 



The following day he wrote : ^^ 



"July i6: We saw numbers of Cabbrle of two different 

 kinds, some [the bucks] almost as large as fallow Deer and 

 others [the does] much smaller, red and white spotted; the 

 latter had young, and did not appear so shy as those we 

 had seen before. The young ones, sighting us, would run 

 up to us within a few yards, while the dams would come 

 on behind them with more caution, until their curiosity was 

 satisfied.'* 



These are all the very early mentions I can find of this 

 animal in our limits. 



Antelope were never found along the low Red River, were 

 rare even on the White Horse Plain, where, however. Captain 

 John Schott of Athabaska Landing — then a boy of 14 — tells 

 me he killed two in the spring of 1855. This is the only evi- 

 dence I can find of Antelope anywhere near Winnipeg. In 

 1852 Schott was with a number of Buffalo hunters on 

 the Big Plain, near the site of Carberry, and there saw several 

 bands of Antelope. But nowhere north of the Assiniboine 

 were they plentiful as on the high prairies west of Pembina 

 Mountain. 



In 1858 Professor H. Y. Hind, travelHng from the United 

 States Boundary on the west bank of the Souris, due north 

 across the Plains of the Pipestone, records'^ for a point ap- 

 parently 10 or 12 miles north of the Boundary: 



''July 4: We saw some herds of Cabri, and McKay suc- 

 ceeded in killing a female." But his narration shows that they 

 were very rare in the region. 



In 1874 Dr. E. Coues saw "a few Antelopes" along the 

 Souris River, near the Boundary. ^^ 



J. T. Brondgeest, of Whitewater, Man., tells me that he 

 first came to Whitewater in 1879, and settled down in the fall 



^^ Ibid., p. 306. " Loc. cit., p. 310-11. 



'* Assin. & Sask. Expl. Exped., 1859, p. 46. 



>' Birds Dak. & Mont., July 29, 1878, Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 3, Vol. IV, p. 547. 



