The Prongborn Antelope 125 



in my blanket and lie looking up at the brill- 

 iant stars until I fell asleep. 



If there were many prongbuck in the locality, 

 we might spend two or three days there, and 

 I would hunt either on foot or on horseback. 

 When such was the case I often went on foot, 

 for the hunting might begin within half a mile 

 of camp, and the less amount of ground covered 

 was offset by the great increase in the care with 

 which I could hunt. Every hunter remembers 

 scores of stalks he has made, successful and un- 

 successful, each marked with its own incidents. 

 But such incidents differ slightly enough in the 

 narration. I would usually see the animal I in- 

 tended to stalk a long distance off, and would 

 not dare to lift my head for another look until 

 I thought I was in his neighborhood. In con- 

 sequence I would sometimes find that I had 

 crawled to the wrong place. I remember one 

 rather ludicrous incident in connection with such 

 a stalk. I saw a prongbuck quite half a mile 

 off, and though I dropped at once, I was uncer- 

 tain whether or not he had seen me. He was 

 in a little hollow. A long, smoothly sloping pla- 

 teau led up to one edge of it. Across this plateau 

 I crawled, and when I was near what I thought 

 was the edge I ventured slowly to look up, and 

 almost immediately saw vaguely through the tops 

 of the long grasses what I took to be the head 



