“Why, I am going to shoot a prong-horn with it if I get the chance,” answered Oscar.
“Take it back to camp, and tell the teamsters to take care of it until you return,” said the colonel. “It will only be in your way. Your revolver and lasso are what you must depend on this morning.”
Oscar hastened to obey, and, when he reached the camp, he found that the colonel had not brought his hounds along. As soon as he came up with the officer again he asked why he had not done so.
“We want to see some sport while our horses are fresh,” was the reply, “and the best way to get it is to run the game down ourselves. A dash of three or four miles will take all the breath out of them, and then we’ll give the hounds a chance. This afternoon we will try still-hunting, which has gone almost out of style, except among the Indians and a few white pot-hunters, and then you can use your rifle.”
During the ride to the plateau the colonel improved the opportunity to give Oscar some instructions in regard to the manner in which antelope were hunted, and the course he must pursue to make the hunt successful.
He showed him how to throw the lasso, and, although the boy tried hard to imitate him, he did it simply out of politeness, and not because he believed that he would ever be able to capture anything with that novel weapon.
He could throw the lasso with all ease as far as its length would permit, and sometimes the noose would go, and sometimes it wouldn’t. He was not very expert with the revolver either, and often wished he had held fast to his rifle.
When the hunting party mounted the hills that led to the plateau, Oscar obtained his first view of a prong-horn.
He was disappointed, as almost everybody is who sees for the first time something he has often read or heard about. He knew that the antelope seldom exceeds three feet in height at the shoulders, and that it rarely weighs more than sixty or seventy pounds; but still he did not expect to find it so diminutive a creature.
There were several small herds grazing quietly within range of his vision, and but for their color they might have been taken for so many sheep.