A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



buck approached to within the same distance and was gazing 

 at us head-on when we discovered it. The bullet that I sent 

 after it must have grazed its head, as it turned a somersault, 

 but recovered itself immediately and disappeared over the 

 horizon like a dun-and-white streak. 



Mounted on fresh saddle - horses, the next morning we 

 again started over the brown swells of the basin. An 

 hour later we were cautiously crawling along a ridge toward 

 where the white rumps of a band of feeding antelope showed 

 above the grass. Noticing a buck walking toward them 

 from, our right, we lay motionless and allowed it to ap- 

 proach within one hundred and fifty yards, where it stopped 

 broadside for a few moments. My first shot threw up a 

 spurt of du-st just beyond it, but at the second report the 

 antelope ran frantically for a couple of hundred yards, then 

 pitched over the top of a slight rise. A cloud of red dust 

 marked its disappearance, and, hurrying forward, we found it 

 about one hundred yards down the next slope ; it had been shot 

 through the lungs. One band of antelope which we alarmed 

 on our return to camp furnished us with a good laugh by stam- 

 peding into a flock of sage-grouse. As the large birds flew up 

 in a whirring mass in the midst of the antelope, these startled 

 animals radiated in all directions with terrific bounds, like 

 sparks from an anvil, and then collected again and disappeared 

 over the horizon with a fresh burst of speed. 



We arrived in camp about one o'clock, seeing numerous 

 antelope on the way, and spent the afternoon in skinning heads. 

 The next morning we started for the settlements. En route 

 we saw numerous elk and antelope, and I succeeded in shoot- 

 ing a large specimen of a coyote which visited camp one rainy 

 morning. We reached Charlie's ranch, in Jackson's Hole, about 

 September 25th, after an interesting and enjoyable month in 

 what at that time was one of the best game countries in West- 

 em United States. 



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