Antelope Hunting Thirty Years Ago and To-Day 197 



proached within shot of 

 the hunter. In early 

 morning a tent or wagon 

 would so puzzle a near- 

 by antelope that it 

 would walk up close to 

 the strange object to dis- 

 cover what it was. On 

 a number of occasions I 

 have killed antelope 

 from the camp, and 

 again while stopping in 

 the middle of the day to 

 cook a little food have 

 had them come to the 

 hilltop, look for a time, 

 and then gallop toward 

 me until finally I killed 

 one within forty yards 

 of the fire o\"er which the 

 coffee pot was boiling. 



When hunting one 

 season in Colorado, the 

 camp being absolutely 

 out of meat, I set out one morning before 

 daylight, on foot, to kill an antelope. No 

 game was seen until, just as the sun was 

 rising behind me, I walked up out of a 

 ravine on a fiat, and saw, about three 

 hundred yards off, two buck antelope star- 

 ing steadily at me. 

 They looked, and 

 looked, but did 

 not seem alarmed. 

 The distance was 

 too great for a 

 sure shot, and I 

 decided to disre- 

 gard them, hoping 

 to find others 

 within easy range. 

 I walked up in 

 plain sight, and 

 toward the ante- 

 lope, both of 

 which stood look- 

 ing at me. I con- 

 tinued to walk to- 

 ward them, and 

 they did not move, 

 and at last when I 

 was within a hun- 

 dred yards of 

 them I fired at the 

 largest, and killed 

 it. I have always 

 believed that the 



Doe, July 



Old Buck, in Rutting Season 



antelope, which were 

 looking directly at the 

 sun, had no idea what 

 sort of an animal it was 

 that was approaching 

 them. No doubt they 

 recognized a moving fig- 

 ure, but no doubt, also, 

 they were absolutely ig- 

 norant as to whether it 

 was man, cow, or elk. 



In somewhat the 

 same way I have pad- 

 dled up to deer feeding 

 on the beach on the 

 British Columbia coast, 

 when the sun was low 

 in the west and at my 

 back. All the western 

 deer, and the elk and 

 buffalo as well, when 

 unable to get scent of 

 a strange object will 

 stare at it long and 

 carefully, striving to learn by the eye just 

 what it is. 



I learned to hunt from the Indians, or 

 from men who themselves had been 

 taught to hunt by the Indians, and usually 

 have killed my antelope by stalking. I 

 early learned that 

 if meat was need- 

 ed, the one quahty 

 necessary to se- 

 cure it was pa- 

 tience. Often I 

 ha\'e looked over 

 a hill and seen a 

 bunch of antelope 

 feeding well out 

 of range, and so 

 stationed that 

 there was no ap- 

 parent way of ap- 

 proaching them ; 

 but a study of 

 their position usu- 

 ally showed that 

 somewhere not far 

 / away there was a 

 - ra\"ine or a hillock 

 which would af- 

 ford cover, and 

 often an hour or 

 two of waiting re- 

 sulted in such a 

 shifting of the lit- 



