2i 8 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



will be found, as alert and as abounding with vi- 

 vacious life as elsewhere. Owing to the magnify- 

 ing and distorting power of the clear, dry plains air, 

 every object, no matter what its shape or color or 

 apparent distance, needs the closest examination. 

 A magpie sitting on a white skull, or a couple of 

 ravens, will look, a quarter of a mile off, like some 

 curious beast; and time and again a raw hunter 

 will try to stalk a lump of clay or a burned stick; 

 and after being once or twice disappointed he is apt 

 to rush to the other extreme, and conclude too has- 

 tily that a given object is not an antelope, when it 

 very possibly is. 



During the morning I came in sight of several 

 small bands or pairs of antelope. Most of them saw 

 me as soon as or before I saw them, and, after watch- 

 ing me with intense curiosity as long as I was in 

 sight and at a distance, made off at once as soon as 

 I went into a hollow or appeared to be approaching 

 too near. Twice, in scanning the country narrowly 

 with the glasses, from behind a sheltering divide, 

 bands of prong-horn were seen that had not discov- 

 ered me. In each case the horse was at once left to 

 graze, while I started off after the game, nearly a 

 mile distant. For the first half mile I could walk 

 upright or go along half stooping; then, as the dis- 

 tance grew closer, I had to crawl on all fours and 

 keep behind any little broken bank, or take advan- 

 tage of a small, dry watercourse; and toward the 

 end work my way flat on my face, wriggling like 

 a serpent, using every stunted sage-brush or patch 



