WIDE AWAKE. 113 



their speed is such that the eye can scarcely follow the 

 action of their limbs. Yet their gait is not low and 

 close to the ground, but a succession of rather lofty 

 bounds, and performed with such surprising ease, that 

 it causes the beholder to wonder how the frame of any 

 creature can sustain uninjured such a tremendous 

 strain. 



The prong-horned antelope is the only species of 

 the genus, and is about the size of Cervus Virginianus, 

 both graceful and elegant in form and action. Well 

 may the Americans be proud of possessing the only 

 representative of the race, for when the antelope 

 is seen on the boundless prairies of the Far West, 

 untrammelled by limit, free to go and return as they 

 choose, the impressions caused will never be effaced, 

 or a better representation of perfect independence and 

 freedom beheld. 



In referring to my diary, I find the following 

 narrative of a day's shooting : 



" Cap., are you asleep?" such was the welcome 

 sound that informed me that some one else was awake 

 besides myself. Such a night I do not think I had 

 ever previously passed, and trust shall never have to 

 again. To ask a man nurtured in a Christian land 

 whether he was asleep ! the thing is perfectly pre- 

 posterous : a gale of wind blowing the entire night, 

 with drops of rain as large and so numerous that a 

 brick wall would scarcely have repelled them, let alone 

 a flimsy break-wind composed of green boughs, yet 

 these western companions of mine slept. Half-a- 

 dozen times I determined to rout them out, and 

 as often gave up the idea : for one was quarrel- 

 some whenever his rest was disturbed ; the other had a 



