202 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



for their winter haunts, and seem very reluctant to 

 leave them. They go in dense herds, and when 

 starved and weak with cold are less shy; and can 

 often be killed in great numbers by any one who 

 has found out where they are though a true sports- 

 man will not molest them at this season. 



Sometimes a small number of individuals will at 

 this time get separated from the main herd and take 

 up their abode in some place by themselves; and 

 when they have once done so it is almost impossible 

 to drive them away. Last winter a solitary prong- 

 horn strayed into the river bottom at the mouth of 

 a wide creek-valley, half a mile from my ranch, and 

 stayed there for three months, keeping with the cat- 

 tle, and always being found within a mile of the 

 same spot. A little band at the same time estab- 

 lished itself on a large plateau, about five miles long 

 by two miles wide, some distance up the river above 

 me, and afforded fine sport to a couple of ranchmen 

 who lived not far from its base. The antelope, 

 twenty or thirty in number, would not leave the pla- 

 teau, which lies in the midst of broken ground; for 

 it is a peculiarity of these animals, which will be 

 spoken of further on, that they will try to keep in 

 the open ground at any cost or hazard. The two 

 ranchmen agreed never to shoot at the antelope on 

 foot, but only to try to kill them from horseback, 

 either with their revolvers or their Winchesters. 

 They thus hunted them for the sake of the sport 

 purely; and certainly they got plenty of fun out of 

 them. Very few horses indeed are as fast as a 



