"They do," said Charlie; "run him down, catch him and cut his throat. Why, sir, they are the best trailers in the world, and as for travelling, they can kill any horse that was ever foaled. They start after the deer, and when he sees them coming, of course he lights out, and is not seen again for some time. The Indians take his trail, and start off at a dog trot, which they can keep up all day. Every time they start the deer, he lets them get a little closer, and at last he's so tired that he only keeps a few yards ahead of them, but they keep on until he fairly drops, plum give out! I have known them, when the deer got pretty tired, to turn him and drive him right into the camp and kill him there, to save themselves the trouble of packing in the meat—make the game pack itself, you see."
"That's a pretty tough story," said Hugh, "but I guess it's all right. I've heard something about those fellows, though I never saw them. I once walked down an antelope, myself, and I wouldn't have believed it, if I hadn't done it. The antelope was wounded, of course.
"The camp needed meat the worst way, and nobody seemed to be able to kill anything. There were antelope in the country, but very wild. I started on foot one afternoon, to try to get something, and after travelling two or three miles I looked over a little ridge, and saw three buck antelope feeding up a ravine toward a table-land above the valley where I was hunting. I could easily get around to the head of the ravine up which they were going, and if I could get there before they reached it, I would be sure to kill one of them. I started running as hard as I could, and had got within a quarter of a mile of the ravine, when, on taking a look, I saw that they had nearly reached the top. I was still about a hundred and fifty yards away when I saw the horns of one of them, as he walked up on the mesa. I dropped, and, when I had a fair shot, fired. I ought to have killed of course, but whether it was because I was so anxious to get him, or because I had been running hard and my hand was unsteady, I only broke the buck's hind leg just above the hock. All three started off, but the wounded one soon tailed out and then turned down a broad valley which led into the one up which I had come, but several miles farther from camp. Well, I started after that buck, and after a long walk found him lying down in the valley. He saw me and ran off down the valley, long before I was able to shoot. I followed as fast as I could, running till my wind gave out, and then walking till I got it again. Whenever I could get near enough, I fired a shot, just to keep him going. At last he grew so tired that he would let me get pretty close up to him before starting, and finally he lay down behind a bank, where I could creep up and kill him. I carried the meat into camp that evening, but when I got there I was so thirsty that I could not speak. My throat was swollen and my tongue was half as big as my fist."
"Well," said Jack, "the antelope is a tough beast and will take a lot of killing, and of course you know better than I do, Hugh, that the plains Indians always speak of it as the swiftest and most long winded of animals."
"Yes," said Hugh. "A man often ties an antelope's horn round his horse's neck by a string, to make the horse swift and long winded."
"I saw a few antelope," said Fannin, "when we crossed the plains, but not many, and I never killed one. They are mighty interesting animals, and what always seemed to me the most extraordinary thing about them is that they shed their horns."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's so, of course, all mountain men have always known that, but I heard only a few years ago that them professors that claim to know everything about all animals only found it out within the last fifteen or twenty years. Something strange about that."
"Yes," said Fannin, "but I suppose, maybe, these professors never had a chance to see many antelopes or know much about them."
"Yes, likely," said Hugh.