Nearly all the Territories have stringent laws intended to prohibit this class of slaughter, but in these sparsely settled countries the provisions for enforcing them are so meagre that these men violate them day after day and year after year with impunity. This is one of the instances in which prohibition does not prohibit. And what I have said of the antelope is true of all the large game of the great West. The elk, deer, mountain sheep, etc., are being slaughtered by the hundreds every year—tenfold faster than the natural increase. And the time is near, very near, when all these noble species will be extinct. The sportsman or naturalist who desires to preserve a skin or head of any of them must procure it very soon or he will not be able to get it at all.
CHAPTER XXIV.
BUFFALO HUNTING ON THE TEXAS PLAINS.
HE "Texas boom" was at its height in 1876, and there was a grand rush of emigrants of all nationalities and conditions of people to the then New Eldorado. Thousands of men went down there to make money. Many of them had not the remotest idea how this was to be done, but from the glowing stories afloat regarding the resources of that wonderful country, they felt sure it could be done in some way. The little town of Fort Worth was then on the frontier—that is, it was one of the most westerly towns having railroad communication, and was therefore one of the important outfitting points for parties going into the wilds. A great many were going further west, on all kinds of expeditions, some in search of minerals, some in search of choice lands, some to hunt the large game which was then abundant.
The village consisted of a public square, around and fronting on which were a row of cheap, one-story, log and frame buildings, most of which were occupied as saloons and gambling houses. But there were a few respectable general stores, half a dozen so-called hotels, shops, etc. The town was full to overflowing with gamblers, rustlers, hunters, cowboys, Mexican rancheros, northern sight-seers, adventurers, commercial travelers, etc.
AT BAY
All day and all night could be heard the call of the croupier at the gambling-table as he announced the numbers and combinations that the wheel or cards produced in the course of the manipulations to which his deft fingers subjected them.
Hot words often came from fortunate and unfortunate gamesters, and the short, sharp report of the six-shooter, the shouts of combatants, the groans of wounded or dying men, the clatter of heavy boots or spurs on the feet of stampeded spectators were sounds that, nearly every night, greeted the ears of the populace.