Donald was interested in all hunting matters, and he was anxious to have Jack tell him the whole story of that hunt in detail. Somewhat reluctantly, Jack told him something of his adventures during his first visit to his uncle's ranch, when he was known as "Jack, the Young Ranchman."
As the boys rode up the valley, new vistas of its yellow surface and of the side ravines that came into it were constantly opening up, and distant animals were often seen which Donald could not always identify, and which he took for deer, or elk, or even cattle. Jack assured him, however, that they were all antelope.
"How do you know?" Donald asked. "Now there's a beast far off that looks black, and looks as if it had big horns. How do you know that that's an antelope?"
"I can't tell you how I know, but I do know that it's an antelope. You say it looks black; well, so it does, but on the other hand, look where the sun is, and you'll see that the reason it looks black is because the part of it that we see is mostly in the shadow, while everything around about is in that bright sunlight. You say it looks as if it had big horns, and I'll acknowledge that it does—but look at it now. Can you see its horns?"
"No," said Donald; "it seems to have lost its horns."
"It has to our eyes," explained Jack, "because it has turned its head, and we don't see the horns from the point of view that we did before. It would be hard for me to say positively that any of those things were not elk or cattle, but I'm dead sure that they are all antelope, because at this time of the day there would not be any elk in this place; that's one thing; another thing is, if they were cattle they would look different. They would be squarer, broader, heavier. Hold on there! Bend down slow, and slip off your horse!"
In a moment the boys were on the ground.
"Did you see him?" Jack whispered.
"No," answered Donald; "I didn't see anything."
"Why, there's a big buck antelope lying there, not seventy-five yards away, and he didn't see us either. I believe we can crawl up close enough to get a shot. Look here, you said just now that you didn't know your pistol, and didn't know how you could shoot with it. Do you want to take mine? I can tell you how it shoots, but I don't know that that'll do much good. If you can get near enough to the buck and can find a place to rest the pistol, you had better shoot at him from a rest."