138 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



ants of certain great plains throughout the entire year. I 

 know another region in northwestern Colorado where the 

 very few prongbucks still left, though they shift from val- 

 ley to valley, yet spend the whole year in the same stretch 

 of rolling, barren country. On the Little Missouri, how- 

 ever, during the eighties and early nineties, there was 

 a very distinct though usually local migration. Before 

 the Black Hills had been settled they were famous win- 

 tering places for the antelope, which swarmed from 

 great distances to them when cold weather approached; 

 those which had summered east of the Big Missouri actu- 

 ally swam the river in great herds, on their journey to 

 the Hills. The old hunters around my ranch insisted 

 that formerly the prongbuck had for the most part trav- 

 elled from the Little Missouri Bad Lands into the Black 

 Hills for the winter. 



When I was ranching on that river, however, this 

 custom no longer obtained, for the Black Hills were too 

 well settled, and the herds of prongbuck that wintered 

 there were steadily diminishing in numbers. At that 

 time, from 1883 to 1896, the seasonal change in habits, 

 and shift of position, of the prongbucks were well 

 marked. As soon as the new grass sprang they appeared 

 in great numbers upon the plains. They were especially 

 fond of the green, tender blades that came up where the 

 country had been burned over. If the region had been 

 devastated by prairie fires in the fall, the next spring it 

 was certain to contain hundreds and thousands of prong- 

 bucks. All through the summer they remained out on 

 these great open plains, coming to drink at the little pools 



