Jack, the Young Ranchman: A Boy's Adventures in the Rockies

by George Bird Grinnell

"Oh, I hope so," gasped Jack, who suddenly began to tremble as if he were cold.

"JACK CREPT UP PAST HUGH ... AND TOOK A CAREFUL AIM."—Page [84].

When they had mounted, Hugh led the way to the place where the antelope had been lying. Here he pointed out the hoof tracks and followed them down the hill. Before long he stopped, and pointing at the ground, said, "See there." Jack looked, and saw a dark splash on the ground, and clinging to a tuft of the brown prairie grass, several bright red drops. After a moment's hesitation, he exclaimed, "Oh, that's blood, isn't it? Then I must have hit him."

"Yes, indeed, he is hit. Now, you see if you can follow that blood trail. Don't keep looking at the ground just in front of you, look ahead of you and don't try to go too fast." Jack looked on the ground ahead of him, and saw other splashes, and starting on, soon saw that he could follow the marks much more easily and quickly in that way than he could by watching those which were close under his horse's head. They went on for a hundred yards further, and then, as they rounded the point of a little knoll, Hugh said, "There's your meat," and looking, Jack saw something white showing above the grass, and a moment later he was looking down on his first antelope.

It was a splendid big buck, and Jack, jumping off his horse, ran to it and for a moment could hardly believe his eyes. Then he tore off his hat and threw it up in the air and just yelled and hurrahed as loud as he could. Hugh meantime, smiling as if greatly pleased, had thrown down the ropes of both horses and twisted them around a sage-bush, and when he came up to the antelope, Jack was looking it all over, opening its mouth, stretching out its slender legs, and smoothing down its coarse rough hair.

"Isn't he pretty, though? And how slim his legs are! No wonder he can run. And he's got a black tongue, just like a pure breed Alderney cow. But he must be pretty old, for he hasn't got any front teeth in his upper jaw. Do you think he'll be very tough? And see, he only has two hoofs on each foot. Are all antelopes that way? Some caribou that Uncle Will killed once in Canada had four hoofs on each foot, two little ones and two big ones. Oh, ain't I glad I didn't miss. But I never thought about missing. I just aimed as near as I could where you told me to. I'm so glad I didn't just wound him. Oh, this is the best day of my life." So Jack chattered on, until Hugh interrupted him by taking hold of the animal and turning it over, saying as he did so, "You done well, my son, mighty well. I watched you shoot and you couldn't have done better if you'd been killing antelope as long as I have. You were steady as a rock. Now, look a'here. You see this little hole? That's where the ball went in; and this big one is where it came out. You want to remember that; going in, the ball makes a small hole, coming out, a big one. You ask a heap of questions, but I'll try and answer some of 'em. You'll have to stop on the prairie longer than I have to find an antelope with front teeth in his upper jaw. They don't have 'em. No more does any other animal that I ever saw that chews the cud. First chance you get, look at a cow's mouth, or a deer's, or an elk's, or a sheep's. You'll see they're all alike in that. A horse has upper front teeth, and so does a hog, but those are about the only animals that eat grass that has 'em, in this country. Now, we've got to butcher. I'll do that, because I know how, and after a while you can learn to. I guess we'll take this fellow in whole. You'd like to have 'em see him that way, I reckon."

Hugh rapidly prepared the animal for transportation to camp, and then, bringing up the horses and tightening the saddles on both, he lifted the antelope on Old Grey, and tied it on behind the saddle with the leather strings, tied its head up, so that the horns should not strike the horse, and the legs to each of the cinch rings of the saddle. Thus it was firm.

He looked at the sky for a moment, and then said, "Let's fill the pipe." Sitting down, he lit his pipe, and while he smoked said: "Antelope don't have no front teeth in the upper jaw, as I told you, and they don't have no dew-claws like a deer or a steer. I can't tell why they don't, but I can tell you what the Indians say about the dew-claws. Now a deer ain't got no gall, and this is the way the deer lost his gall and the antelope his dew-claws.