2i 8 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



will be found, as alert and as abounding with vi 

 vacious life as elsewhere. Owing to the magnify 

 ing and distorting power of the clear, dry plains air, 

 every object, no matter what its shape or color or 

 apparent distance, needs the closest examination. 

 A magpie sitting on a white skull, or a couple of 

 ravens, will look, a quarter of a mile off, like some 

 curious beast; and time and again a raw hunter 

 will try to stalk a lump of clay or a burned stick; 

 and after being once or twice disappointed he is apt 

 to rush to the other extreme, and conclude too has 

 tily that a given object is not an antelope, when it 

 very possibly is. 



During the morning I came in sight of several 

 small bands or pairs of antelope. Most of them saw 

 me as soon as or before I saw them, and, after watch 

 ing me with intense curiosity as long as I was in 

 sight and at a distance, made off at once as soon as 

 I went into a hollow or appeared to be approaching 

 too near. Twice, in scanning the country narrowly 

 with the glasses, from behind a sheltering divide, 

 bands of prong-horn were seen that had not discov 

 ered me. In each case the horse was at once left to 

 graze, while I started off after the game, nearly a 

 mile distant. For the first half mile I could walk 

 upright or go along half stooping; then, as the dis 

 tance grew closer, I had to crawl on all fours and 

 keep behind any little broken bank, or take advan 

 tage of a small, dry watercourse; and toward the 

 end work my way flat on my face, wriggling like 

 a serpent, using every stunted sage-brush or patch 



