152 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



before us was the Medicine Bow range, in and around 

 which elk ran in their thousands. 



Of all the varieties of western game, the prong- 

 horn antelope of the plain is, perhaps, the most 

 sporting. In those days they were ubiquitous on 

 the rolling prairies and among the foot-hills of Wyo- 

 ming. Hard to approach, quick- sighted and fast, they 

 afforded not only good venison, but the best possible 

 rifle practice. There was, in fact, no better school 

 in which to learn the use of a sporting rifle. One 

 could generally ride to within a long shot say 

 300 or 400 yards. An old buck's curiosity would 

 usually detain him a few seconds, and so give the 

 rifleman a standing chance. I have often, where the 

 shot was a long one, put in a successful second barrel 

 after getting the range by seeing where the first 

 bullet had struck the dusty plain. On the other hand, 

 I always found it extremely difficult to get a standing 

 chance at antelope at anything like point-blank range. 

 The small-bore cordite-powder rifle had not then been 

 invented. It would have been an ideal weapon for the 

 plains antelope, owing to its flat trajectory and long 

 point-blank range. 



Some of the western trappers and ranchmen of the 

 'seventies and 'eighties used to earn a living by supply- 

 ing railway camps with antelope venison, and, as a 

 result of constant practice, were among the best rifle- 

 shots I have ever seen or heard of. It was just the 

 case of the professional as against the amateur of 

 work done for a living, as against the practice of a 

 pastime. I have known indifferent amateur shots 

 spend a day among herds of antelope, and spend 

 dozens of cartridges without touching a hair ; while 

 a bag of twenty or thirty antelope was not an un- 



