Much of the time we were on a high divide between two creek systems, from which we could see the great landmarks of all the regions roundabout, Sentinel Butte, Square Butte and Middle Butte, far to the north and east of us. Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one and the faint afterglow of the red sunset filled the west. The endless waves of rolling prairie, sweeping, vast and dim, to the feet of the great hills, grew purple as the evening darkened, and the buttes loomed into vague, mysterious beauty as their sharp outlines softened in the twilight.
Even when we got out of reach of the sheep men we never found antelope very plentiful, and they were shy, and the country was flat, so that the stalking was extremely difficult; yet I had pretty good sport. The first animal I killed was a doe, shot for meat, because I had twice failed to get bucks at which I emptied my magazine at long range, and we were all feeling hungry for venison. After that I killed nothing but bucks. Of the five antelope killed, one I got by a headlong gallop to cut off his line of flight. As sometimes happens with this queer, erratic animal, when the buck saw that I was trying to cut off his flight he simply raced ahead just as hard as he knew how, and, as my pony was not fast, he got to the little pass for which he was headed 200 yards ahead of me. I then jumped off, and his curiosity made him commit the fatal mistake of halting for a moment to look round at me. He was standing end on, and offered a very small mark at 200 yards; but I made a good line shot, and, though I held a trifle too high, I hit him in the head, and down he came. Another buck I shot from under the wagon early one morning as he was passing just beyond the picketed horses. I have several times shot antelope which unexpectedly came into camp in this fashion. The other three I got after much manœuvring and long, tedious stalks.
In some of the stalks, after infinite labor, and perhaps after crawling on all-fours for an hour, or pulling myself flat on my face among some small sage-brush for ten or fifteen minutes, the game took alarm and went off. Too often, also, when I finally did get a shot, it was under such circumstances that I missed. Sometimes the game was too far; sometimes it had taken alarm and was already in motion; sometimes the trouble could only be ascribed to lack of straight powder, and I was covered with shame as with a garment. Once in the afternoon I had to spend so much time waiting for the antelope to get into a favorable place that, when I got up close, I found the light already so bad that my front sight glimmered indistinctly, and the bullet went wild. Another time I met with one of those misadventures which are especially irritating. It was at midday, and I made out at a long distance a band of antelope lying for their noon rest in a slight hollow. A careful stalk brought me up within fifty yards of them. I was crawling flat on my face, for the crest of the hillock sloped so gently that this was the only way to get near them. At last, peering through the grass, I saw the head of a doe. In a moment she saw me and jumped to her feet, and up stood the whole band, including the buck. I immediately tried to draw a bead on the latter, and to my horror found that, lying flat as I was, and leaning on my elbows, I could not bring the rifle above the tall shaking grass, and was utterly unable to get a sight. In another second away tore all the antelope. I jumped to my feet, took a snap shot at the buck as he raced round a low-cut bank and missed, and then walked drearily home, chewing the cud of my ill-luck. Yet again in more than one instance, after making a good stalk upon a band seen at some distance, I found it contained only does and fawns, and would not shoot at them.
Three times, however, the stalk was successful. Twice I was out alone; the other time my foreman was with me, and held my horse while I manœuvred hither and thither, and finally succeeded in getting into range. In both the first instances I got a standing shot, but on this last occasion, when my foreman was with me, two of the watchful does which were in the band saw me before I could get a shot at the old buck. I was creeping up a low washout, and, by ducking hastily down again and running back and up a side coulee, I managed to get within long range of the band as they cantered off, not yet thoroughly alarmed. The buck was behind, and I held just ahead of him. He plunged to the shot, but went off over the hill-crest. When I had panted up to the ridge I found him dead just beyond.
One of the antelope I killed while I was out on foot toward nightfall, a couple of miles from the wagon. I saw the prongbuck quite half a mile off, and though I dropped at once I was uncertain whether he had seen me. He was in a little hollow or valley. A long, smoothly sloping plateau led up to one edge of it. Across this plateau I crawled, and when I thought I was near the run I ventured slowly to look up, and almost immediately saw vaguely through the tops of the long grasses what I took to be the head and horns of the buck, looking in my direction. There was no use in going back, and I dropped flat on my face again and crawled another hundred yards, until it was evident that I was on the rise from which the plateau sank into the shallow valley beyond. Raising my head inch by inch, I caught sight of the object toward which I had been crawling, and after a moment’s hesitation recognized it as a dead sunflower, the stalks and blossoms so arranged as to be in a V shape. Completely puzzled, I started to sit up, when by sheer good luck I caught sight of the real prongbuck, still feeding, some three hundred yards off, and evidently unaware of my presence. It was feeding toward a slight hill to my left. I crept off until behind this, and then walked up until I was in line with a big bunch of weeds on its shoulder. Crawling on all-fours to the weeds, I peeped through and saw the prongbuck still slowly feeding my way. When he was but seventy yards off, I sat up and shot him; and trudged back to the wagon, carrying the saddle and hams.
In packing an antelope or deer behind the saddle, I cut slashes through the sinews of the legs just above the joints; then I put the buck behind the saddle, run the picket rope from the horn of the saddle, under the belly of the horse, through the slashes in the legs on the other side, bring the end back, swaying well down on it, and fasten it to the horn; then I repeat the same feat for the other side. Packed in this way, the carcass always rides steady, and cannot shake loose, no matter what antics the horse may perform.
In the fall of 1896 I spent a fortnight on the range with the ranch wagon. I was using for the first time one of the new small calibre, smokeless-powder rifles, with the usual soft-nosed bullet. While travelling to and fro across the range we usually moved camp each day, not putting up the tent at all during the trip; but at one spot we spent three nights. It was in a creek bottom, bounded on either side by rows of grassy hills, beyond which stretched the rolling prairie. The creek bed, which at this season was of course dry in most places, wound in S-shaped curves, with here and there a pool and here and there a fringe of stunted wind-beaten timber. We were camped near a little grove of ash, box-elder, and willow, which gave us shade at noonday; and there were two or three pools of good water in the creek bed—one so deep that I made it my swimming-bath.
The first day that I was able to make a hunt I rode out with my foreman, Sylvane Ferris. I was mounted on Muley. Twelve years before, when Muley was my favorite cutting pony on the round-up, he never seemed to tire or lose his dash, but Muley was now sixteen years old, and on ordinary occasions he liked to go as soberly as possible; yet the good old pony still had the fire latent in his blood, and at the sight of game—or, indeed, of cattle or horses—he seemed to regain for the time being all the headlong courage of his vigorous and supple youth.
On the morning in question it was two or three hours before Sylvane and I saw any game. Our two ponies went steadily forward at a single-foot or shack, as the cow-punchers term what Easterners call a “fox trot.” Most of the time we were passing over immense grassy flats, where the mat of short curled blades lay brown and parched under the bright sunlight. Occasionally we came to ranges of low barren hills, which sent off gently rounded spurs into the plain.
It was on one of these ranges that we first saw our game. As we were travelling along the divide we spied eight antelope far ahead of us. They saw us as soon as we saw them, and the chance of getting to them seemed small; but it was worth an effort, for by humoring them when they started, so as to let them wheel and zigzag before they became really frightened, and then, when they had settled into their run, by galloping toward them at an angle oblique to their line of flight, there was always some little chance of getting a shot. Sylvane was on a light buckskin horse, and I left him on the ridge crest to occupy their attention while I cantered off to one side. The pronghorns became uneasy as I galloped away, and ran off the ridge crest in a line nearly parallel to mine. They did not go very fast, and I held in Muley, who was all on fire at the sight of the game. After crossing two or three spurs, the antelope going at half speed, they found I had come closer to them, and turning, they ran up one of the valleys between two spurs. Now was my chance, and wheeling at right angles to my former course, I galloped Muley as hard as I knew how up the valley nearest and parallel to where the antelope had gone. The good old fellow ran like a quarter-horse, and when we were almost at the main ridge crest I leaped off, and ran ahead with my rifle at the ready, crouching down as I came to the sky-line. Usually on such occasions I find that the antelope have gone on, and merely catch a glimpse of them half a mile distant, but on this occasion everything went right. The band had just reached the ridge crest about 220 yards from me across the head of the valley, and had halted for a moment to look around. They were starting as I raised my rifle, but the trajectory is very flat with these small-bore smokeless-powder weapons, and taking a coarse front sight I fired at a young buck which was broadside to me. There was no smoke, and as the band raced away I saw him sink backward, the ball having broken his hips.