It was proposed that Jack Mason should go along. Each man would take his saddle horse and while two would ride, the third would drive the wagon, his saddle animal carrying the saddle being tied up to the hames of one of the team horses. In the wagon they would take a tent and three or four days' grub.
They started one morning in good season and were four or five miles from the ranch before the sun showed its face over the high eastern hills.
A little farther on, as Jack and Donald rode up on a low ridge, Jack saw off to the left a yearling buck antelope, distant not more than sixty or seventy yards, which gazed steadily at them. Jack pulled up and motioned to Donald to get off his horse and kill the yearling, which, notwithstanding their movements, stood looking at them. Donald gave Jack his reins and stepped behind the horses, where he threw a cartridge into his gun and fired at the antelope. At the report the yearling trotted a few steps toward them, and Jack saw the ball strike the prairie far beyond the animal. Again Donald fired, and again the antelope advanced a few steps. Jack saw the second bullet knock up the dust far toward the hillside.
"You're shooting too high!" he called to Donald; "you're seeing too much of your foresight. Draw down a good deal finer and aim at the point of his breast."
The third time Donald shot; and this time the antelope fell.
"Where did you hold for that last shot?" asked Jack, as the two rode up to the fallen animal.
"Square for the breast," said Donald.
"Well, if that's the case, you must draw your sight still finer, for I believe you hit that antelope in the neck, high up."
When they dismounted this proved to be the fact. The antelope's neck was broken by a ball which had entered the throat only about three inches beneath the head.
"Was this antelope insane?" Donald asked Jack, as they began the work of dressing the animal. "Why did he not run away? Instead of doing that he kept coming closer at each shot."