316 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



open sights, yet let the Lyman once be tried, and its great 

 advantages will become apparent. 



With this, by way of preface, I will proceed with some 

 reminiscences of hunting experiences on the great plains, 

 and meantime will give some hints as to how best to hunt 

 the game in question; for, notwithstanding the relentless 

 war that has been waged against the wary little denizen of 

 the plains, there are localities where he may still be found 

 in sufficient numbers to afford good sport. 



"Liver-Eating Johnson," guide, scout, hunter and trap- 

 per, prairie-man, Indian-fighter, thoroughly educated and 

 equipped frontiersman at every point, graduate at the head 

 of his class in prairie lore — withal, a long-headed, cool, and 

 calculating man — once said to me while hunting: ' " What a 

 live Antelope don't see between dawn and dark isn't visible 

 from his stand -point; and while you're a gawkin' at him 

 thro' that 'ere glass to make out whether he's a rock or a 

 Goat, he's acountin' your cartridges and fixin's, andmakin' 

 up his mind which way he'll scoot when you disappear in 

 the draw for to sneak on 'im — and don't you forget it." 

 Dear reader, pardon me for adding, " And don't you forget 

 it, either." 



The ostrich, with his vaunted power of vision, is com- 

 paratively near-sighted when compared with the Antelope. 

 The Giraffe may excel him, not from having superior eyes, 

 but from their greater elevation, and therefore greater 

 scope. The Deer is simply nowhere in this respect. Even 

 when in the habit of roaming on the prairie, he has not the 

 knack of detecting an intruder "on sight" as an Antelope 

 has. I never had any trouble in getting within two hun- 

 dred yards of an ostrich, in any decent place; yet, with 

 years of experience on these, and a great deal of other 

 prairie-shooting, I at first found it difficult to get within 

 six hundred yards of an Antelope, and then it was invari- 

 ably a wide-awake one, fully able to take care of himself — 

 generally on the trot or zigzagging about, craning his neck 

 to find out, I suppose, according to Johnson's theory, 

 whether my gun was really loaded with a ball or blank 



