38 Ranching in the Bad Lands. 



game ? The truth is that three hundred yards is a very long 

 shot, and that even two hundred yards is a long shot. On 

 looking over my game-book I find that the average distance 

 at which I have killed game on the plains is less than a 

 hundred and fifty yards. A few years ago, when the 

 buffalo would stand still in great herds, half a mile from 

 the hunter, the latter, using a long-range Sharp's rifle, 

 would often, by firing a number of shots into the herd at 

 that distance, knock over two or three buffalo ; but I have 

 hardly ever known single animals to be killed six hundred 

 yards off, even in antelope hunting, the kind in which 

 most long-range shooting is done ; and at half that dis- 

 tance a very good shot, with all the surroundings in his 

 favor, is more apt to miss than to hit. Of course old 

 hunters the most inveterate liars on the face of the 

 earth are all the time telling of their wonderful shots at 

 even longer distances, and they do occasionally, when 

 shooting very often, make them, but their performances, 

 when actually tested, dwindle amazingly. Others, ama- 

 teurs, will brag of their rifles. I lately read in a magazine 

 about killing antelopes at eight hundred yards with a 

 Winchester express, a weapon which cannot be depended 

 upon at over two hundred, and is wholly inaccurate at 

 over three hundred, yards. 



The truth is that, in almost all cases the hunter merely 

 guesses at the distance, and, often perfectly honestly, just 

 about doubles it in his own mind. Once a man told me 

 of an extraordinary shot by which he killed a deer at four 

 hundred yards. A couple of days afterward we happened 

 to pass the place, and I had the curiosity to step off the dis- 



