HUNTING IN CATTLE COUNTRY 159 



ject to break the horizon; sometimes across a score of 

 miles there would loom through the clear air the fantastic 

 outlines of a chain of buttes, rising grim and barren. Oc- 

 casionally there might be a slightly marked watercourse, 

 every drop of moisture long dried; and usually there 

 would not be as much as the smallest sage brush anywhere 

 in sight. As the sun rose higher and higher the shadows 

 of horse and rider shortened, and the beams were reflected 

 from the short, bleached blades until in the hot air all 

 the landscape afar off seemed to dance and waver. Often 

 on such trips days went by without our coming across 

 another human being, and the loneliness and vastness of 

 the country seemed as unbroken as if the old vanished 

 days had returned the days of the wild wilderness wan- 

 derers, and the teeming myriads of game they followed, 

 and the scarcely wilder savages against whom they 

 warred. 



Now and then prongbuck would appear, singly or 

 in bands; and their sharp bark of alarm or curiosity 

 would come to me through the still, hot air over great 

 distances, as they stood with head erect looking at me, 

 the white patches on their rumps shining in the sun, and 

 the bands and markings on their heads and necks show- 

 ing as if they were in livery. Scan the country as care- 

 fully as I would, they were far more apt to see me than 

 I was them, and once they had seen me, it was normally 

 hopeless to expect to get them. But their strange freak- 

 ishness of nature frequently offsets the keenness of their 

 senses. At least half of the prongbucks which I shot were 

 obtained, not by stalking, but by coming across them 



