ON THE PRAIRIE 97 



noiseless white shadows, and finally came 

 upon some sharp-tail prairie fowl in a hol- 

 low. One was quite near me, perched on 

 a bush, and with its neck stretched up offered 

 a beautiful mark; I could not resist it, so 

 knelt and fired. At the report of the rifle 

 (it was a miss, by the by) a head suddenly 

 appeared over a ridge some six hundred 

 yards in front too far off for us to make out 

 what kind of animal it belonged to, looked 

 fixedly at us, and then disappeared. We 

 feared it might be a mountain sheep, and that 

 my unlucky shot had deprived us of the 

 chance of a try at it; but on hurrying up 

 to the place where it had been we were re- 

 lieved to find that the tracks were only 

 those of a black-tail. After this lesson we 

 proceeded in silence, making a long circle 

 through the roughest kind of country. 

 When on the way back to camp, where the 

 Inittes rose highest and steepest, we came 

 upon fresh tracks, but as it was then late in 

 the afternoon, did not try to follow them that 

 day. When near the hut I killed a sharp- 



