A Trip on the Prairie. 187 



Antelope have the greatest objection to going on any 

 thing but open ground, and seem to be absolutely unable 

 to make a high jump. If a band is caught feeding in the 

 bottom of a valley leading into a plain they invariably 

 make a rush straight to the mouth, even if the foe is 

 stationed there, and will run heedlessly by him, no matter 

 how narrow the mouth is, rather than not try to reach the 

 open country. It is almost impossible to force them into 

 even a small patch of brush, and they will face almost 

 certain death rather than try to leap a really very trifling 

 obstacle. If caught in a glade surrounded by a slight 

 growth of brushwood, they make no effort whatever to get 

 through or over this growth, but dash frantically out 

 through the way by which they got in. Often the deer, 

 especially the black-tail, will wander out on the edge of 

 the plain frequented by antelope ; and it is curious to see 

 the two animals separate the second there is an alarm, 

 the deer making for the broken country, while the ante- 

 lope scud for the level plains. Once two of my men 

 nearly caught a couple of antelope in their hands. They 

 were out driving in the buck-board, and saw two antelope, 

 a long distance ahead, enter the mouth of a wash-out (a 

 canyon in petto) ; they had strayed away from the prairie 

 to the river bottom, and were evidently feeling lost. My 

 two men did not think much of the matter but when oppo- 

 site the mouth of the wash-out, which was only thirty feet 

 or so wide, they saw the two antelope starting to come out 

 having found that it was a blind passage, with no outlet 

 at the other end. Both men jumped out of the buck-board 

 and ran to the entrance ; the two antelope dashed franti- 



