138 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
him again he should give me a specimen of the same gait 
for my gratification. 
I do not think I ever felt more savage in my life. Twa 
or three times I hesitated whether I would try the effect of 
a leaden messenger after him. If so long a journey to ciy- 
ilization had not been before me, I believe I should, but 
finally concluded that cutting off your nose to spite your 
face was at the best an unsatisfactory performance. After 
spending half an hour in dragging the game together, and 
possibly as much longer in ruminating over the awkward- 
ness of my position, and the mutability of human and horse 
affairs, debating the pros and cons whether to return to 
camp or remain where I was, to my intense satisfaction I 
saw one of my comrades coming toward me with the now 
submissive Broomstick captive, and looking as if any pace 
faster than that of a funeral procession was entirely beyond 
his powers of exertion. My friend had spied the truant 
making straight for camp. After an exciting chase, he had 
succeeded in capturing him, when, by taking the direction 
from which he was seen to come, he happily tumbled across 
me, much to my relief; for, after all, the little shelter afford- 
ed by timber, where you can always have a good fire, is in- 
finitely preferable to a smouldering smudge of buffalo-chips, 
with the wind playing at hide-and-go-seek round your shirt- 
tails. 
The following will give the reader some idea of the hard- 
ship and danger to be run by the sportsman who deter- 
mines on visiting the home of the prong-horned antelope. 
Circumstances had caused me to attach myself to a trader, 
who, with about twenty teamsters, was en route for North- 
ern Mexico. My duties were to hunt and supply the party 
with game, a pleasant enough occupation, but not without 
danger, for the greater portion of the country we traversed - 
belonged to the. much-dreaded Comanche, the most reck-: 
