A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



horse, threw the reins of its bridle over its head, and sat down 

 by the fire to converse with us. Our five hobbled horses were 

 grazing near the tent when they perceived the white animal 

 approaching. Then, for some unknown reason, they stampeded 

 madly across the country, followed and urged on by the friendly 

 saddle-horse. Charlie and the stranger immediately started 

 after them on foot, and followed them late into the night with- 

 out overtaking them. The next morning the three of us started 

 out horse-hunting. About noon Charlie found our horses in an 

 exhausted condition in a gully ten miles distant, removed the 

 hobbles, and drove them into camp. Of the stranger we 

 heard nothing further, but two horsemen from the surveying 

 party with whom he had been encamped, a number of miles 

 down the valley, rode in that afternoon to inquire whether 

 he had been murdered. They informed us that they had 

 found his horse bridled and saddled, with the rifle in its scab- 

 bard. 



That evening found our tired pacK-train enveloped in a cloud 

 of suffocating white dust in the sage-brush covered flat of a 

 tributary of the river, which wound tortuously through a coun- 

 try of weird-shaped pinnacles and buttes of red sandstone. 

 Suddenly rounding a gayly colored butte, we came upon a grassy 

 pocket in the hills, which was occupied by two bunches of 

 antelope and a band of probably fifty elk. Slipping from our 

 horses, Charlie and I crawled through some sage-brush toward 

 the nearest band of antelope, which contained about fifteen 

 animals. As they passed us at full speed in an undulating line 

 about two hundred and fifty yards distant, we fired simul- 

 taneously. At the report of both rifles the bounding line of 

 antelope bunched up for a few moments, and then stretched out 

 again into the sunset. Four white legs kicking spasmodically 

 in the air told us that we had fresh meat, and on reaching the 

 spot we found one down, shot through the shoulders. We 

 needed meat so badly that we had resolved to take no chances 



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