MY FIRST TRIP TO THE ROCKIES 153 



common morning's work for an old hand when the 

 Union Pacific Railway was being laid. 



An old western ranchman and hunter of my 

 acquaintance, still living on the North Platte, once 

 killed seven out of a small band of eight antelope 

 in as many shots with a Winchester magazine rifle, 

 the first as it stood at over 100 yards, and the remain- 

 ing six as they galloped madly away. This man was 

 the prototype of Mayne Reid's or Fenimore Cooper's 

 old Indian trapper of school-boy romance. He was 

 born, so to speak, with a rifle in his hand, and pos- 

 sessed that marvellous instinctive skill with the 

 weapon that comes, I suppose, from natural aptitude 

 developed to its highest possible efficiency by constant 

 use. I have seen him rake a single elk from stem to 

 stern with a bullet from an old Ballard rifle at over 

 400 yards, and do it with assurance, thinking nothing 

 of the feat, and fully expecting to accomplish it. 

 When I say over 400 yards, I mean that full measured 

 distance, and any sportsman who has drawn a bead 

 on wild game, standing end- on in a rough country at 

 that distance, will know what the ordinary chances 

 of missing it are, particularly before smokeless-powder 

 small-bore rifles were invented. 



' How do you do it, Al ?' I once asked this 

 man. 



' Wai,' he replied, ' I don't exactly know ; but,' he 

 went on, ' I guess I can always place my bullet where 

 I want to.' And in his case this statement was no 

 idle boast. 



We had arrived, then, at our first hunting- camp. 

 Tom Bate and I had expended a fair amount of 

 ammunition on antelope en route, and had kept the 

 larder going. But now we had reached the elk 



