144 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



at a fair distance and a running shot close up, and 

 by good luck every now and then kill far off; but 

 to much more than is implied in the description of 

 such modest feats we can not pretend. 



After the disappearance of the buffalo and the 

 thinning out of the elk, the black-tail was, and in 

 most places it still is, the game most sought after 

 by the hunters ; I have myself shot as many of them 

 as of all other kinds of plains game put together. 

 But for this very reason it is fast disappearing; and 

 bids fair to be the next animal, after the buffalo 

 and elk, to vanish from the places that formerly 

 knew it. The big-horn and the prong-horn are more 

 difficult to stalk and kill, partly from their greater 

 natural wariness, and partly from the kind of 

 ground on which they are found. But it seems at 

 first sight strange that the black-tail should be ex- 

 terminated or driven away so much more quickly 

 than the white-tail, when it has sharper ears and 

 nose, is more tenacious of life, and is more wary. 

 The main reason is to be found in the difference in 

 the character of the haunts of the two creatures. 

 The black-tail is found on much more open ground, 

 where the animals can be seen further off, where 

 it is much easier to take advantage of the direction 

 of the wind and to get along without noise, and 

 where far more country can be traversed in a given 

 time; and though the average length of the shots 

 taken is in one case two or three times as great as 

 in the other, yet this is more "than counterbalanced 

 by the fact that they are more often standing ones, 



