constant cutting down of the open 
range by fenced ranches has greatly 
reduced their available territory, ante- 
lope are still to be found in fair num- 
bers in parts of the northwest and in 
the southwest, and if carefully con- 
served may yet again afford sport to 
the hunter of the plains. 
NDEED now that the lordly buffalo 
is little more than a memory and 
that the remaining elk have become en- 
tirely an animal of the mountain for- 
ests or park country, the antelope is 
the only big game animal left on the 
prairies. Although in certain sections 
great sport may still be had in hunt- 
ing the big gray wolf with deerhounds, 
it seems hardly right to refer to that 
sneaking bit of vermin as proper big 
game. 
In general appearance, I think the 
antelope the most striking of our game 
animals. The coarse, reddish brown 
hair of the back and upper sides, in- 
terspersed with much black on the face, 
shades sharply into snowy white on the 
lower half of the head and body, which 
is rather short and compact in the 
barrel, and standing about three feet 
at the withers on the strongest but 
most graceful of legs. In addition to 
the white on cheeks, belly and sides, 
he has a white rump and two hori- 
zontal white bands running across the 
front of his neck. 
HE bucks have black, oval-shaped 
horns of from 12 to 15 inches in 
length, which, spreading grandly away 
from each other, turn, generally back- 
ward, sharply at the tips, while slightly 
more than half-way up each horn is a 
single prong. I recently heard this 
showy little chap very 
aptly described as the 
“wood-duck of Ameri- 
can big game.” His 
big prominent eyes, 
placed, as they are, 
directly at the -base 
of the horns and 
much on the side of 
the head, seem to give 
him sa tremendous 
sweep of vision, and 
there is little indeed, 
either in the broken 
country or out on the 
“bald prairie” that es- 
capes his ever watch- 
ful gaze. 
In the matter of 
scent he is also quite 
as kéen as any of the 
deer family. He, 
however, does _ not : 
seem to make the r 
slightest attempt at Photo by Author 
concealment but de- 
Page 723 
pends entirely upon his keen sight, and 
scent, and upon his lightning speed to 
carry him out of harm’s way. 
The best time to hunt antelope is 
fairly early in the morning or late in’ 
the afternoon, while they are feeding. 
They generally lie down in some very 
open spot in the middle of the day and 
nearly always have one or more sharp- 
eyed sentries on guard, making a suc- 
cessful stalk at that time all the harder. 
The prong horn once had the reputa- 
tion of sometimes being overcome by 
his great curiosity, and, in remote dis- 
tricts, of having been tolled to within 
range by the intermittent flicking of 
a colored handkerchief from behind 
some cover. I have never seen this 
successfully accomplished, and on oc-- 
casions when, as a last resort, I’ve 
tried it, the wary little brutes, after 
taking a good long look from a safe 
distance, have ended by ambling lei- 
surely off for another half mile or so 
and then, all turning round for a last 
look, before taking their final depar- 
ture. 
OST of my antelope hunting, I did 
from the home ranch which nes- 
tled snugly in one of the first cups of 
the foothills, but had a broad outlook 
to the southeast over the rolling prairie, 
broken here and there, by a line of low 
cotton woods, showing the course of 
some stream or creek. Old Baldy and 
Teddy were the two best hunting po- 
nies. The latter was my favorite, 
partly because he was quieter to pack 
game on, and largely, I think, because 
he was named after one of the most 
successful hunters and best all-round 
sportsmen this country has ever known. 
He was an old stocky brown pony with 

“Teddy,” my favorite hunting pony (with buck antelope) 
a large grey patch-on his left cheek, 
the result of a rattlesnake bite received 
long before, and from which but for 
a strong constitution and painful but 
effective treatment, he would have suc- 
cumbed. 
FP URING the latter part of one Octo- 
ber, having had no venison or 
other game at the ranch for some time, 
I resolved to spend three or four days 
on an antelope hunt. So I started out 
early one crisp, bright morning riding 
Baldy and leading Teddy on whom I 
had only packed my bed and a small 
supply of bread, bacon and tea _suffi- 
cient for 3 days, but hoped to bring 
him home heavily laden with game. 
My rifle was a .30-.40 Winchester of 
carbine length which is more conve- 
nient for carrying on horseback than 
the longer barreled variety. This rifle 
I have always found extremely accu- 
rate up to any range at which game is 
fired at, either in a wooded or an open 
country, and with its tremendous hit- 
ting power and penetration has been to 
me a most effective weapon against 
most kinds of American large game. 
I’ve only very recently changed to the 
newer and more powerful new .30 ’06 
Winchester, which, built with a shot- 
gun stock, makes a splendid game rifle. 
KNEW of several bands of antelope, 
some in the broken country to the 
north and others out on the flats to 
the southeast, so decided to hunt from 
the north in a semi-circle to try my 
luck in both localities. 
Keeping constantly on the lookout 
for game, we wound our way leisurely 
through a succession of low hills de- 
void of any cover other than a sprink- 
line ore stunite'd™ 
greasewood bushes. 
In spite of the utmost 
watchfulness, how- 
ever, in rounding a 
hill, I blundered onto 
three antelope, a buck 
and two does who, 
having seen me first, 
were off at lightning 
speed before I could 
jump off and let fly a 
fruitless parting shot, 
which only kicked up 
the dust in their 
wake and made them 
turn on a bit more 
steam. When thor- 
oughly startled, ante- 
lope running with the 
utmost smoothness of 
motion on their grace- 
ful, steel-like legs, 
seem fairly to fly over 
_the ground. 
Nothing more was 
