HUNTING THE PRONG-BUCK. 91 



Often I have killed prong-bucks while 

 riding between the outlying line camps, which 

 are usually stationed a dozen miles or so back 

 from the river, where the Bad Lands melt 

 into the prairie. In continually trying long 

 shots, of course one occasionally makes a 

 remarkable hit. Once I remember while 

 riding down a broad, shallow coulie with two 

 of my cow-hands Seawell and Dow, both 

 keen hunters and among the staunchest friends 

 I have ever had rousing a band of antelope 

 which stood irresolute at about a hundred 

 yards until I killed one. Then they dashed 

 off, and I missed one shot, but with my next, 

 to my own utter astonishment, killed the last 

 of the band, a big buck, just as he topped a 

 rise four hundred yards away. To offset 

 such shots I have occasionally made an unac- 

 countable miss. Once I was hunting with 

 the same two men, on a rainy day, when we 

 came on a bunch of antelope some seventy 

 yards off, lying down jn the side of a coulie, 

 to escape the storm. They huddled together 

 a moment to gaze, and, with stiffened fingers 

 I took a shot, my yellow oilskin slicker flap- 

 ping around me in the wind and rain. Down 

 went one buck, and away went the others. 

 One of my men walked up to the fallen beast, 

 bent over it, and then asked, " Where did 

 you aim ? " Not reassured by the question, I 

 answered doubtfully, " Behind the shoulder"; 

 whereat he remarked drily, " Well, you hit it 

 in the eye ! " I never did know whether I 

 killed the antelope I aimed at or another. 

 Yet that same day I killed three more bucks 

 at decidedly long shots ; at the time we lacked 



