1 88 A Trip on the Prairie. 



cally to and fro inside the wash-out. The sides were steep, 

 but a deer would have scaled them at once ; yet the ante- 

 lope seemed utterly unable to do this, and finally broke out 

 past the two men and got away. They came so close that 

 the men were able to touch each of them, but their move- 

 ments were too quick to permit of their being caught. 



However, though unable to leap any height, an ante- 

 lope can skim across a level jump like a bird, and will go 

 over water-courses and wash-outs that very few horses 

 indeed will face. A mountain-sheep, on the other hand, 

 is a marvellous vertical leaper ; the black-tail deer comes 

 next ; the white-tail is pretty good, and the elk is at any 

 rate better than the antelope ; but when it comes to hori- 

 zontal jumping the latter can beat them all. 



In May or early June the doe brings forth her fawns, 

 usually two in number, for she is very prolific. She makes 

 her bed in some valley or hollow, and keeps with the rest 

 of the band, only returning to the fawns to feed them. 

 They lie out in the grass or under some slight bush, but 

 are marvellously hard to find. By instinct they at once 

 know how to crouch down so as to be as inconspicuous as 

 possible. Once we scared away a female prong-horn from 

 an apparently perfectly level hill-side ; and in riding along 

 passed over the spot she had left and came upon two lit- 

 tle fawns that could have been but a few hours old. They 

 lay flat in the grass, with their legs doubled under them 

 and their necks and heads stretched out on the ground. 

 When we took them up and handled them, they soon got 

 used to us and moved awkwardly round, but at any sud- 

 den noise or motion they would immediately squat flat 



