132 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



Antelope gather together in great bands in the fall, and either travel 

 south, leaving the country altogether, or else go to some out-of-the-way 

 place where they are not likely to be disturbed. Antelope are queer, 

 freaky beasts, and it is hard to explain why, when most of these great 

 bands go off south, one or two always stay in the Bad Lands. Such a 

 band having chosen its wintering ground, which is usually in a valley 

 or on a range of wide plateaus, will leave it only with great reluctance, 

 and if it is discovered by hunters most of its members will surely be 

 butchered before the survivors are willing to abandon the place and seek 

 new quarters. 



In April the prong-horned herds come back, but now all broken up 

 into straggling parties. They have regular passes, through which they 

 go every year: there is one such not far from my ranch, where they are 

 certain to cross the Little Missouri in great numbers each spring on their 

 return march. In the fall, when they are traveling in dense crowds, 

 hunters posted in these passes sometimes butcher enormous numbers. 



Soon after they come back in the spring they scatter out all over the 

 plains, and for four months after their return that is, until August they 

 are the game we chiefly follow. This is because at that time we only 

 hunt enough to keep the ranch in fresh meat, and kill nothing but the 

 bucks ; and as antelope, though they shed their horns, are without them 

 for but a very short time, and as, moreover, they are always seen at a 

 distance, it is easy to tell the sexes apart. 



Antelope shooting is the kind in which a man most needs skill in the 

 use of the rifle at long ranges; for they are harder to get near than any 

 other game partly from their wariness, and still more from the nature 

 of the ground they inhabit. Many more cartridges are spent, in propor- 

 tion to the amount of game killed, in hunting antelope than is the case 

 while after deer, elk, or sheep. Even good hunters reckon on using 

 six or seven cartridges for every prong-horn that they kill ; for antelope 

 are continually offering standing shots at very long distances, which, nev- 

 ertheless, it is a great temptation to try, on the chance of luck favoring 

 the marksman. Moreover, alone among plains' game, they must gen- 

 erally be shot at over a hundred and fifty yards, and often at between 

 two and three hundred. Over this distance a man will kill occasion- 

 ally, I have done so myself, but at such long range it is mainly a mat- 

 ter of accident. The best field-shot alive lacks a good deal of always 

 killing, if the distance is much over two hundred yards ; and with every 

 increase beyond that amount, the chances of failure augment in geometri- 

 cal proportion. Exceptional individuals perform marvelous feats with the 



