ON THE PRAIRIE 17 



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 cattle, and always 

 being found within a mile of the same spot. 

 A little band at the same time established it- 

 self 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 plateau, which lies in the 

 midst of broken ground; for it is a pecul- 

 iarity 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 prong- 



