150 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



and capacity to hit a small stationary object at long 

 range. 



The different degrees of estimation in which the 

 chase of the various kinds of plains game is held 

 depend less upon the difficulty of capture than upon 

 the nature of the qualities in the hunter which each 

 particular form of hunting calls into play. A man 

 who is hardy, resolute, and a good shot, has come 

 nearer to realizing the ideal of a bold and free 

 hunter than is the case with one who is merely 

 stealthy and patient; and so, though to kill a white- 

 tail is rather more difficult than to kill a black-tail, 

 yet the chase of the latter is certainly the nobler 

 form of sport, for it calls into play, and either de 

 velops or implies the presence of, much more manly 

 qualities than does the other. Most hunters would 

 find it nearly as difficult to watch in silence by a 

 salt-lick throughout the night, and then to butcher 

 with a shotgun a white-tail, as it would be to walk 

 on foot through rough ground from morning till 

 evening, and to fairly approach and kill a black-tail ; 

 yet there is no comparison between the degree of 

 credit to be attached to one feat and that to be at 

 tached to the other. Indeed, if difficulty in killing 

 is to be taken as a criterion, a mink or even a weasel 

 would have to stand as high up in the scale as a deer, 

 were the animals equally plentiful. 



Ranged in the order of the difficulty with which 

 they are approached and slain, plains game stand 

 as follows: big-horn, antelope, white-tail, black-tail, 

 elk, and buffalo. But, as regards the amount of 



