PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE. 
199 
and brought within an enclosure to keep the young company, they became 
furious, and ran and butted alternately against the picket-wall or fence, 
until they were too much bruised and exhausted to recover. William 
Sublette, Esq., of St. Louis, Missouri, however, brought with him to that 
city a female antelope, caught when quite young on the prairies of the 
far west, which grew to maturity, and was so very gentle, that it would go 
all over the house, mounting or descending the stairs, and occasionally 
going on to the roof of the building he lived in. This female was alive 
when we first reached St. Louis, but not being aware of its existence, we 
never saAV it. It was killed before we left by a buck-elk, belonging to the 
same gentleman. 
Whilst on our journey in the far west, in 1843, on one occasion, we had 
the gratification of seeing an old female, in a fiock of eight or ten antelopes, 
suckling its young. The little beauty performed this operation precisely in 
the manner of our common lambs, almost kneeling down, bending its head 
upwards, its rump elevated, it thumped the bag of its mother, from time 
to time, and reminded us of far distant scenes, where peaceful flocks feed 
and repose under the safeguard of our race, and no prowling wolf or hungry 
Indian defeats the hopes of the good shepherd who nightly folds his stock of 
the Leicester or Bakewell breed. Our wild antelopes, however, as we 
approached them, scampered away ; and we were delighted to see that 
first, and in the van of all, was the young one ! 
On the 21st July, 1843, whilst in company with our friend, Edward 
Harris, Esq., during one of our hunting excui’sions, we came in sight of an 
antelope gazing at us, and determined to stop and try if we could bring 
him toward us by the trick we have already mentioned, of throwing our 
legs up in the air and kicking them about, whilst lying on our back in the 
grass. We kicked away first one foot and then the other, and sure enough, 
the antelope walked slowly toward us, apparently with great caution and 
suspicion. In about twenty minutes he had advanced towards us some two 
or three hundred yards. He was a superb male, and we looked at him for 
several minutes when about sixty yards off. We could see his fine pro- 
truding eyes ; and being loaded with buck-shot, we took aim and pulled 
trigger. Off he went, as if pursued by a whole Black-foot Indian hunting 
party. Friend Harris sent a ball at him, but was as unsuccessful as our- 
selves, for he only ran the faster for several hundred yards, when he 
stopped for a few minutes, looked again at us, and then went ofi, without 
pausing as long as he was in sight. We have been informed by Lafleur, 
a man employed by the Company, that antelopes will escape with great 
ease even when they have one limb broken, as they can run fast enough 
upon three legs to defy any pursuit. Whilst we were encamped at the 
