58 THE ANTELOPE OF AMERICA. 
ably tenacious of life, or if this does not express the exact truth, 
he can sustain himself for a length of time with such severe 
wounds as would prostrate almost any other animal. With a 
broken leg he will flee almost as rapidly as if uninjured, and 
the hunters insist he will maintain the chase nearly as far. They 
insist he will carry off more lead than any other animal of his 
size. I was once on a hunt in the Sierra Madre Mountain, near 
the Laramie Plains, when it was a standing joke in camp, that 
one of the party, a distinguished judicial officer of Wyoming, 
who was an excellent sportsman as well as a good judge, had 
shot fourteen balls into a buck antelope, and only so crippled 
him, that by throwing away his gun in despair of killing his 
game in that way, he was enabled to overtake him on foot and 
knock him on the head with his hatchet. While undoubtedly 
the antelope must fall to the shot if hit in a vital part, he can 
carry severe wounds, and frequently escapes unless these reach 
some part upon which life or locomotion immediately depend. 
All of these characteristics should be constantly borne in mind 
by the sportsman or the hunter if he would pursue the American 
antelope with success. 
Our antelope was an essential article of food.among the ab- 
origines inhabiting the country which it frequented before the 
introduction of fire-arms among them. They had various modes 
of capturing it, chief among which was with the bow and arrow. 
This mode involved the necessity of their getting a very close 
range. This could only be done by some kind of artifice, or by 
the most skillful and cautious stalking, always remembering its 
defective eyesight, its acute senses of hearing and smelling, as 
well as its inordinate curiosity. The latter infirmity — for such 
it often proves to the animal—was taken advantage of by the 
savage, who, approaching the game as nearly as he safely could 
from behind the sage bushes or other concealing object, exhibit- 
ing in irregular motion a piece of the tanned skin of the animal 
colored red or white, or some other attractive object, would at- 
tract the game. When the attention of the antelope is attracted 
by such an object alternately appearing and disappearing, its curi- 
osity becomes excited, and an interesting struggle commences 
between that and its timidity, and it will approach cautiously, 
then retreat a little, then prance around, drawing towards the 
object gradually till it is finally brought within bow-shot. Then 
it was that the Indian would let fly his arrow from his conceal- 
ment, or spring to his feet, the arrow to the string, and the 
