Deerfoot on the Prairies

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Meanwhile Victor was stealing along the ridge until, as he judged, he had reached a point nearly opposite the animals, who were a furlong distant. Then he crept up the elevation, whose crest fortunately was crowned with the same exuberant growth of grass that grew in the valley beyond.

So painstaking was he that his friends lost sight of him and did not know when he was at the crest of the elevation until the antelopes showed by their excitement that they had detected him. They had resumed cropping the grass, when all three abruptly raised their heads and dashed off at the height of their astonishing speed. A moment later Victor was seen running down the slope until a little beyond the base, when he dropped on his face.

Immediately after, while his body was screened from sight, he raised the ramrod of his rifle, with his cap on the upper end. The lower point was pushed down into the earth so that unaided it supported the headgear. He had improved on the method of the Blackfoot.

At first it looked as if this artifice had come too late, for the antelopes continued running. When first seen they were in a valley-like depression with a width of a third of a mile. They made a pretty picture as they skimmed up the opposite slope with their bodies showing in relief against the green background.

The cap, however, on top of the ramrod was so conspicuous that they were not long in discovering it. The three stopped, turned sideways and stood a few minutes gazing intently at the strange object. Then all three broke into a gentle trot toward it, keeping side by side most of the way. One of the trio had more sense or possibly more timidity than his companions, for he abruptly stopped and refused to go any farther. Strangely enough, the others showed no hesitation until within a hundred yards of where the boy, stretched out in the grass, was waiting for the moment when he could make his aim sure.

“I wonder if they ain’t twins like me and George,” was the whimsical fancy of the lad, as he watched the similarity of action on the part of the two antelopes. They had halted at precisely the same second, and now moved forward again, both stepping high and advancing with a curious hesitation which indicated the mental struggle between fear and curiosity.

One turned to the left and ran nimbly in a circle of several rods diameter, coming around and facing the ramrod and cap again, as if hypnotized. At the same moment the other described a similar circle to the right, returning like his companion, so that the two stood side by side, with heads raised, and stepped off again, as if keeping time with the signals of some one who had trained them to the performance.

Victor was impatient, but he had too much prudence to throw away the opportunity that he knew would come to him in a few minutes. When both animals were nigh enough for him to be sure of his aim he still hesitated, with gun pointed, hammer raised and finger on the trigger. He was wondering how much nearer they would approach. Surely, when they caught sight of him in the grass, their curiosity would vanish, and they would dash off in the very extremity of terror. He lay low and waited.

His plan was to hold his fire until the discovery should burst upon the antelopes and they wheeled to flee. This turning would give him his best chance, and he intended to shoot at the crisis of the change of direction.

One of the creatures paused, as if he had observed something that warned him to halt. His companion took three steps more and then halted, with head high in air and one foot lifted and poised like a pointer dog.