138 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



him again he should give me a specimen of the same gait 

 for my gratification. 



I do not think I ever felt more savage in my life. Two 

 or three times I hesitated whether I would try the effect of 

 a leaden messenger after him. If so long a journey to civ- 

 ilization had not been before me, I believe I should, but 

 finally concluded that cutting off your nose to spite your 

 face was at the best an unsatisfactory performance. After 

 spending half an hour in dragging the game together, and 

 possibly as much longer in ruminating over the awkward- 

 ness of my position, and the mutability of human and horse 

 affairs, debating the pros and cons whether to return to 

 camp or remain where I was, to my intense satisfaction I 

 saw one of my comrades coming toward me with the now 

 submissive Broomstick captive, and looking as if any pace 

 faster than that of a funeral procession was entirely beyond 

 his powers of exertion. My friend had spied the truant 

 making straight for camp. After an exciting chase, he had 

 succeeded in capturing him, when, by taking the direction 

 from which he was seen to come, he happily tumbled across 

 me, much to my relief ; for, after all, the little shelter afford- 

 ed by timber, where you can always have a good fire, is in- 

 finitely preferable to a smouldering smudge of buffalo-chips, 

 with the wind playing at hide-and-go-seek round your shirt- 

 tails. 



The following will give the reader some idea of the hard- 

 ship and danger to be run by the sportsman who deter- 

 mines on visiting the home of the prong-horned antelope. 



Circumstances had caused me to attach myself to a trader, 

 who, with about twenty teamsters, was en route for North- 

 ern Mexico. My duties were to hunt and supply the party 

 with game, a pleasant enough occupation, but not without 

 danger, for the greater portion of the country we traversed 

 belonged to the much-dreaded Comanche, the most reck- 



