234 THE OX FAMILY 



the buffaloes, and I have often seen a band of antelopes 

 take the alarm first and by their headlong flight set a 

 great herd of buffaloes in motion before I was ready to 

 charge them. 



At the railway eating-stations on the plains the wait- 

 ers said "antelope chops," "antelope steak," etc., in 

 announcing their list of edibles, and, next to the buf- 

 falo, the antelope was the most familiar meat. Tiie 

 flesh is excellent, and resembles mutton rather than 

 venison. 



As I have said, the antelopes were very plentiful along 

 the line of the Union and Central Pacific Railway in 

 all suitable places for some years after the railway was 

 open for business. As late as 1880, when the Northern 

 Pacific was being built into the upper Missouri and 

 Yellowstone country, I saw the antelopes equally abun- 

 dant on the wide, undulating grass-plains, on alkaline 

 plains overgrown with the ArUmism, or wild-sage, in the 

 little valleys and mountain-meadows, and even rambling 

 through the Bad Lands, those peculiar buttes to which 

 the earlier French-Canadian voyageurs gave the name 

 " terres niaiivaises." 



So long as the Sioux and Cheyennes were a menace 

 to hunters as well as cattlemen, sheepmen, and farm- 

 ers, the antelopes were safe and showed no decrease, 

 but as soon as the Indians were subjugated and re- 

 moved from the country to the reservations and agen- 

 cies and the Northern Pacific Railway crossed the 

 continent, the last great herd of buffaloes disappeared, 

 as we have seen, and soon there were few antelopes, 

 and in large areas none. 



Upon revisiting the plains, where I had seen both 



