154 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



in a few hundred yards, and sometimes having to run a 

 mile or so. In consequence, by the time we reached the 

 regular hunting-ground the dogs were apt to have lost 

 a good deal of their freshness. We would get them in 

 behind the horses and creep cautiously along, trying to 

 find some solitary prongbuck in a suitable place, where 

 we could bring up the dogs from behind a hillock and 

 give them a fair start. Usually we failed to get the dogs 

 near enough for a good start; and in most cases their 

 chases after unwounded prongbuck resulted in the quarry 

 running clean away from them. Thus the odds were 

 greatly against them; but, on the other hand, we helped 

 them wherever possible with the rifle. We usually rode 

 well scattered out, and if one of us put up an antelope, 

 or had a chance at one when driven by the dogs, he 

 always fired, and the pack were saved from the ill effects 

 of total discouragement by so often getting these wounded 

 beasts. It was astonishing to see how fast an antelope 

 with a broken leg could run. If such a'beast had a good 

 start, and especially if the dogs were tired, it would often 

 lead them a hard chase, and the dogs would be utterly 

 exhausted after it had been killed ; so that we would have 

 to let them lie where they were for a long time before 

 trying to lead them down to some stream-bed. If pos- 

 sible, we carried water for them in canteens. 



There were red-letter days, however, on which our 

 dogs fairly ran down and killed unwounded antelope 

 days when the weather was cool, and when it happened 

 that we got our dogs out to the ground without their being 

 tired by previous runs, and found our quarry soon, and 



