46 Deer and Antelope of North America 



mule-deer, and they fairly swarmed ; while elk 

 were also plentiful, and the restless herds of the 

 buffalo surged at intervals through the land. 

 After 1882 and 1883 the buffalo and elk were 

 killed out, the former completely, and the latter 

 practically, and the skin hunters, and then the 

 ranchers, turned their attention chiefly to the 

 mule-deer. It lived in open country where there 

 was cover for the stalker, and so it was much 

 easier to kill than either the whitetail, which 

 was found in the dense cover of the river bot- 

 toms, or the prongbuck, which was found far 

 back from the river, on the flat prairies where 

 there was no cover at all. I have been informed 

 of other localities in which the antelope has dis- 

 appeared long before the mule-deer, and I believe 

 that in the Rockies the mule-deer has a far better 

 chance of survival than the antelope has on the 

 plains; but on the Little Missouri the antelope 

 continued plentiful long after the mule-deer had 

 become decidedly scarce. In 1886 I think the 

 antelope were fully as abundant as ever they were, 

 while the mule-deer had wofully diminished. In 

 the early nineties there were still regions within 

 thirty or forty miles of my ranch, where the ante- 

 lope were very plentiful — far more so than the 

 mule-deer were at that time. Now they are both 

 scarce along the Little Missouri, and which will 

 outlast the other I cannot say. 



