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THE HOME OF THE ELK.

Hunting Trips on the
Prairie and in the

Mountains

By ee

Theodore Roosevelt

Author of ‘* American Ideals,” ‘“‘ The Wilderness Hunter,”
*“* The Winning of the West,” etc.

“ Hunting Trips of a Ranchman ”

Part 11,

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G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
Ig00

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TRS a

CopyRIGHT, 1885

BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

A TRIP ON THE PRAIRIE.

The prong-horn antelope—Appearance, hab-
its, and method of hunting—Hunting on
horseback—Wariness, speed, curiosity, and
incapacity to make high jumps—Fawns as
pets—Eagles—Horned frogs—Rattlesnakes
—Trip on the prairie in June—Sights and
sounds—Desolate plains—Running antelope
—Night camp—Prairie dogs—Badgers—
Skylarks—A long shot—Clear weather—
Camping among Medicine Buttes—Sunset
on plateau

CHAPTER II.

A TRIP AFTER MOUNTAIN SHEEP,

Spell of bitter weather—News brought of
mountain sheep—Start after them—False
alarm about bear—Character of Bad Lands
—Description of mountain sheep or big-
horn—Its wariness—Contrasted with other
game—Its haunts—The hardest of all game
to successfully hunt—Our trip—Cold

5

6 CONTENTS

weather and tiresome walking—Very rough
ground—Slippery, ice-covered crags—Ram
LEGS i aes as eB AF ARUN ICY iph oo 8

CHAPTER Tim:

THE LORDLY BUFFALO.

Extinction of the vast herds—Causes—A ver-
itable tragedy of the animal world—Senti-
mental and practical sides—Traces left by
buffalo—Skulls and trails—Merciless de-
struction by hunters and by cattle men—
Development of mountain race of the buf-
falo—Buffalo-hunting—Noble sport—Slight
danger—A man killed—My brother charged
—Adventure of my cousin with a wounded
buffalo—Three of my men and wounded
cow—Buffalo and cattle—Hunting them on
foot—Hunting on horseback—My brother
in Texas—I take a trip in buffalo country—
Wounded bull escapes—Miserable ‘night
camp—Miss a cow in rain—Bad luck—
Luck turns—Kill a bull—A wagon trip . 106

CHAPTER UY.

STILL-HUNTING ELK ON THE MOUNTAINS.

Former range of elk—Rapid destruction—
Habits—Persecuted by hunters—Other foes
—Lordly game—Trip to Bighorn Moun-
tains—Managing pack-train—See elk and
go into camp—Follow up band in mocca-

CONTENTS ;

sins—Kill two—Character of the deep
woods—Sights and sounds of the forest—
Blue grouse—Snow—Cold weather—Trout
—Calling of bull elk—Killing elk in burned
timber—Animals of the wilderness—Kill
great bull elk—Kill another . . . . 155

CHAPTER -V.

OLD VMEBRRATM .

Dangerous game, but much less dangerous
than formerly—Old-time hunters and
weapons—Grizzly and other ferocious wild
beasts—Only fights if wounded—Anecdotes
of their killing and wounding men—At-
tacks stock—Our hunting on the Bighorn
Mountains—Merrifield kills black bear—
Grizzly almost comes into camp—Tracks of
grizzly—Watch for one at elk carcass—
\Follow him up and kill him—Merrifield
kills one—Five shot with seven bullets—
She and cub killed—Return home . . . 197

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PART II
CHAPTER |
A TRIP ON THE PRAIRIE

O antelope are found, except rarely, im-
mediately round my _ ranch-house,

where the ground is much too broken to suit
them; but on the great prairies, ten or fif-
teen miles off, they are plentiful, though far
from as abundant as they were a few years
ago when the cattle were first driven into the
land. By plainsmen they are called either
prong-horn or antelope, but are most often
kuown by the latter and much less descrip-
tive title. Where they are found they are
always very conspicuous figures in the land-
scape; for, far from attempting to conceal
itself, an antelope really seems anxious to
take up a prominent position, caring only
to be able to itself see its foes. It is the
smallest in size of the plains game, even

9

10 HUNTING TRIPS

smaller than a white-tail deer; and its hide
is valueless, being thin and porous, and mak-
ing very poor buckskin. In its whole ap-
pearance and structure it is a most singular
creature. Unlike all other hollow-horned an-
imals, it sheds its horns annually, exactly as
the deer shed their solid antlers; but the
shedding process in the prong-horn occupies
but a very few days, so short a time, indeed,
that many hunters stoutly deny that it takes
place at all. The hair is of remarkable tex-
ture, very long, coarse, and brittle; in the
spring it comes off in handfuls. In strong
contrast to the reddish yellow of the other
parts of the body, the rump is pure white,
and when alarmed or irritated every hair
in the white patch bristles up on end, greatly
increasing the apparent area of the color.
The flesh, unlike that of any other plains ani-
mal, is equally good all through the year.
In the fall it is hardly so juicy as deer veni-
son, but in the spring, when no other kind
of game is worth eating, it is perfectly good;
and at that time of the year, if we have to

ON THE PRAIRIE | a

get fresh meat, we would rather kill ante-
lope than any thing else; and as the bucks
are always to be instantly distinguished from
the does by their large horns, we confine our-
selves to them, and so work no harm to the
species.

The antelope is a queer-looking rather than
a beautiful animal. The curious pronged
horns, great bulging eyes, and strange bridle-
like marks and bands on the face and throat
are more striking, but less handsome, than
the delicate head and branching antlers of a
deer ; and it entirely lacks the latter animal’s
grace of movement. In its form and look,
when standing still, it is rather angular and
goat-like, and its movements merely have the
charm that comes from lightness, speed, and
agility. Its gait is singularly regular and
even, without any of the bounding, rolling
movement of a deer; and it is, consequently,
very easy to hit running, compared with
other kinds of game.

Antelope possess a most morbid curiosity.
The appearance of any thing out of the way,

i HUNTING TRIPS

or to which they are not accustomed, often
seems to drive them nearly beside themselves
with mingled fright and desire to know what
it is, a combination of feelings that throws
them into a perfect panic, during whose con-
tinuance they will at times seem utterly un-
able to take care of themselves. In very
remote, wild places, to which no white man
often penetrates, the appearance of a white-
topped wagon will be enough to excite this
feeling in the prong-horn, and in such cases
it is not unusual for a herd to come up and ©
circle round the strange object heedless of
rifle-shots. This curiosity is particularly
strong in the bucks during rutting-time, and
one method of hunting them is to take ad-
vantage of it, and “flag” them up to the
hunters by waving a red handkerchief or
some other object to and fro in the air. In
very wild places they can sometimes be
flagged up, even after they have seen the
man; but, elsewhere, the latter must keep
himself carefully concealed behind a ridge
or hillock, or in tall grass, and keep cau-

ON THE PRAIRIE 13

tiously waving the handkerchief overhead.
The antelope will look fixedly at it, stamp,
snort, start away, come nearer by fits and
starts, and run from one side to the other, the
better to see it. Sometimes a wary old buck
will keep this up for half an hour, and at
the end make off; but, again, the attraction
may prove too strong, and the antelope
comes slowly on until within rifle-shot. This
method of hunting, however, is not so much
practised now as formerly, as the antelope
are getting continually shyer and more dif-
ficult to flag. I have never myself shot one
in this manner, though I have often seen
the feat performed, and have several times
tried it myself, but always with the result
that after I had made my arm really weak
with waving the handkerchief to and fro, the
antelope, which had been shifting about just
out of range, suddenly took to its heels and
made off.

No other kind of plains game, except the
big-horn, is as shy and sharp-sighted as the
antelope; and both its own habits and the

14 HUNTING TRIPS

open nature of the ground on which it is
found render it peculiarly difficult to stalk.
There is no cover, and if a man is once seen
by the game the latter will not let him get
out of sight again, unless it decides to go
off at a gait that soon puts half a dozen miles
between them. It shifts its position, so as
to keep the hunter continually in sight.
Thus, if it is standing on a ridge, and the
hunter disappear into a ravine up which he
intends to crawl, the antelope promptly gal-
lops off to some other place of observation
from which its foe is again visible; and this
is repeated until the animal at last makes up
its mind to start for good, It keeps up an
incessant watch, being ever on the look-out
for danger, far or near; and as it can see-
an immense distance, and has its home on_
ground so level that a horseman can be-
made out a mile off, its attention is apt to
be attracted when still four or five rifle-shots
beyond range, and after it has once caught a
glimpse of the foe, the latter might as well
give up all hopes of getting the game.

ON THE PRAIRIE I5

But while so much more wary than deer, it
is also at times much more foolish, and has
certain habits—some of which, such as its in-
ordinate curiosity and liability to panic, have
already been alluded to—that tend to its des-
truction. Ordinarily, it is a far more dif-
ficult feat to kill an antelope than it is to kill
a deer, but there are times when the former
can be slaughtered in such numbers that it
becomes mere butchery.

The prong-horn is pre-eminently a grega-
rious animal. It is found in bands almost
all the year through. During the two or
three days after he has shed his horns and
while the new ones are growing the buck re-
tires to some out-of-the-way spot, and while
bringing forth her fawns the doe stays by
herself. But as soon as possible each again
rejoins the band; and the fawns become
members of it at a remarkably early age.
In the late fall, when the bitter cold has be-
gun, a large number of these bands collect
together, and immense herds are formed
which last throughout the winter. Thus at

16 HUNTING TRIPS

this season a man may travel for days
through regions where antelope are most
plentiful during the hot months and never
see one; but if he does come across any they
will be apt to be in great numbers, most prob-
ably along the edge of the Bad Lands, where
the ground is rolling rather than broken, but
where there is some shelter from the furious
winter gales. Often they will even come
down to the river bottom or find their way
up to some plateau. They now always hang
closely about the places they have chosen for
their winter haunts, and seem very reluctant
to leave them. They go in dense herds, and
when starved and weak with cold are less
shy ; and can often be killed in great numbers
by any one who has found out where they
are—though a true sportsman will not mo-
lest them at this season.

Sometimes a small number of individuals
will at this time get separated from the main
herd and take up their abode in some place
by themselves; and when they have once
done so it is almost impossible to drive

ON THE PRAIRIE 17

them away. Last winter a solitary prong-
horn strayed into the river bottom at the
mouth of a wide creek-valley, half a mile
from my ranch, and stayed there for three
months, keeping with the cattle, and always
being found within a mile of the same spot.
A little band at the same time established it-
self on a large plateau, about five miles long
by two miles wide, some distance up the river
above me, and afforded fine sport to a couple
of ranchmen who lived not far from its base.
The antelope, twenty or thirty in number,
would not leave the plateau, which lies in the
midst of broken ground; for it is a pecul-
iarity of these animals, which will be spoken
of further on, that they will try to keep in
the open ground at any cost or hazard. The
two ranchmen agreed never to shoot at the
antelope on foot, but only to try to kill them
from horseback, either with their revolvers or
their Winchesters. They thus hunted them
for the sake of the sport purely ; and certainly
they got plenty of fun out of them. Very
few horses indeed are as fast as a prong-

18 HUNTING TRIPS

horn; and these few did not include any
owned by either of my two friends. But
the antelope were always being obliged to
break back from the edge of the plateau, and
so were forced constantly to offer opportu-
nities for cutting them off; and these op-
portunities were still further increased by the
two hunters separating. One of them would
go to the upper end of the plateau and start
the band, riding after them at full speed.
They would distance him, but would be
checked in their career by coming to the
brink of the cliff; then they would turn at
an angle and give their pursuer a chance to
cut them off; and if they kept straight up
the middle the other hunter would head them.
When a favorable moment came the hunters
would dash in as close as possible and empty
their revolvers or repeaters into the herd;
but it is astonishing how hard it is, when
riding a horse at full speed, to hit any ob-
ject, unless it is directly under the muzzle
of the weapon. The number of cartridges
spent compared to the number of prong-horn

ON THE PRAIRIE 19

killed was enormous; but the fun and excite-
ment of the chase were the main objects with
my friends, to whom the actual killing of the
game was of entirely secondary importance.
They went out after them about a dozen
times during the winter, and killed in all ten
or fifteen prong-horns.

A prong-horn is by far the fleetest animal
on the plains; one can outrun and outlast a
deer with the greatest ease. Very swift
greyhounds can overtake them, if hunted in
leashes or couples; but only a remarkably
good dog can run one down single-handed.
Besides prong-horn are most plucky little
creatures, and will make a most resolute fight
against a dog or wolf, striking with their
fore-feet and punching with their not very
formidable horns, and are so quick and wiry
as to be really rather hard to master.

Antelope have the greatest objection to go-
ing on any thing but open ground, and seem
to be absolutely unable to make a high jump.
If a band is caught feeding in the bottom
of a valley leading into a plain they invari-

20 HUNTING TRIPS

ably make a rush straight to the mouth, even
if the foe is stationed there, and will run
heedlessly by him, no matter how narrow
the mouth is, rather than not try to reach the
open country. It is almost impossible to
force them into even a small patch of brush,
and they will face almost certain death rather
than try to leap a really very trifling obsta-
cle. If caught in a glade surrounded by a
slight growth of brushwood, they make no
effort whatever to get through or over this
growth, but dash frantically out through the
way by which they got in. Often the deer,
especially the black-tail, will wander out on
the edge of the plain frequented by antelope ;
and it is curious to see the two animals sep-
arate the second there -is an alarm,
the deer making for the broken coun-
try, while the antelope scud for the level
plains. Once two of my men nearly caught
a couple of antelope in their hands. They
were out driving in the buck-board, and saw
two antelope, a long distance ahead, enter
the mouth of a wash-out (a canyon im

ON THE PRAIRIE 2I

petto); they had strayed away from the
prairie to the river bottom, and were evi-
dently feeling lost. My two men did not
think much of the matter but when opposite
the mouth of the wash-out, which was only
thirty feet or so wide, they saw the two an-
telopes. starting to come out, having found
that it was a blind passage, with no outlet
at the other end. Both men jumped out of
the buck-board and ran to the entrance; the
two antelope dashed frantically to and fro
inside the wash-out. The sides were steep,
but a deer would have scaled them at once;
yet the antelope seemed utterly unable to do
this, and finally broke out past the two men
and got away. They came so close that the
men were able to touch each of them, but
their movements were too quick to permit of
their being caught.

However, though unable to leap any
height, an antelope can skim across a level
jump like a bird, and will go over water-
courses and wash-outs that very few horses
indeed will face. A mountain-sheep, on the

22 HUNTING TRIPS

other hand, is a marvellous vertical leaper;
the black-tail deer comes next; the white-tail
is pretty good, and the elk is at any rate bet-
ter than the antelope; but when it comes to
horizontal jumping the latter can beat them
all.

In May or early June the doe brings forth
her fawns, usually two in number, for she is
very prolific. She makes her bed in some
valley or hollow, and keeps with the rest of
the band, only returning to the fawns to feed
them. They lie out in the grass or under
some slight bush, but are marvellously hard
to find. By instinct they at once know how
to crouch down so as to be as inconspicuous
as possible. Once we scared away a female
| prong-horn from an apparently perfectly
level hill-side; and in riding along passed
over the spot she had left and came upon two
little fawns that could have been but a few
hours old. They lay flat in the grass, with
their legs doubled under them and their necks
and heads stretched out on the ground.
When we took them up and handled them,

ON THE PRAIRIE 23

they soon got used to us and moved awk-
wardly round, but at any sudden noise or
motion they would immediately squat flat
down again. But at a very early age the
fawns learn how to shift for themselves, and
can then run almost as fast as their parents,
even when no larger than a jack-rabbit.
Once, while we were haying, a couple of
my cow-boys spent half an hour in trying to
run down and capture a little fawn, but they
were unable to catch it, it ran so fast and
ducked about so quickly. Antelope fawns
are very easily tamed and make most amus-
ing pets. We have had two or three, but
have never succeeded in rearing any of them;
but some of the adjoining ranchmen have
been more fortunate. They are not nearly
so pretty as deer fawns, having long, gang-
ling legs and angular bodies, but they
are much more familiar and interesting.
One of my neighbors has three live prong-
horns, as well as two little spotted white-tail
deer. The deer fawns are always skulking
about, and are by no means such bold in-

24 HUNTING TRIPS

quisitive little creatures as the small antelope
are. The latter have a nurse in the shape
of a fat old ewe; and it is funny to see her,
when alarmed, running off at a waddling
gait, while her ungainly little foster-children
skip round and round her, cutting the most
extraordinary antics. There are a couple of
very large dogs, mastiffs, on the place, whose
natural solemnity is completely disconcerted
by the importunities and fearlessness of the
little antelope fawns. Where one goes the
other two always follow, and so one of the
mastiffs, while solemnly blinking in the sun,
will suddenly find himself charged at full
speed by the three queer little creatures, who
will often fairly butt up against him. The
uneasy look of the dog, and his efforts to get
out of the way without compromising his
dignity, are really very comical.

Young fawns seem to give out no scent,
and thus many of them escape from the nu-
merous carnivorous beasts that are ever
prowling about at night over the prairie, and
which, during the spring months, are al-

ON THE PRAIRIE 25

ways fat from feeding on the bodies of the
innocents they have murdered. If discov-
ered by a fox or coyote during its first few
days of existence a little fawn has no chance
of life, although the mother, if present, will
fight desperately for it; but after it has ac-
quired the use of its legs it has no more to
fear than have any of the older ones.
Sometimes the fawns fall victims to the
great Golden Eagle. This grand bird, the
War Eagle of the Sioux, is not very common
in the Bad Lands, but is sometimes still seen
with us; and, as everywhere else, its mere
presence adds a certain grandeur to its lonely
haunts. Two or three years ago a nest was
found by one of my men on the face of an
almost inaccessible cliff, and a young bird
was taken out from it and reared in a
roughly extemporized cage. Wherever the
eagle exists it holds undisputed sway over
every thing whose size does not protect it
from the great bird’s beak and talons; not
only does it feed on hares, grouse, and ducks,
but it will also attack the young fawns of the

26 HUNTING TRIPS

deer and antelope. Still, the eagle is but
an occasional foe, and aside from man, the
only formidable enemies the antelope has to
fear are the wolves and coyotes. These are
very destructive to the young, and are al-
ways lounging about the band to pick up
any wounded straggler; in winter, when the
ground is slippery and the antelope numbed
and weak, they will often commit great havoc
even among those that are grown up.

The voice of the antelope is not at all like
that of the deer. Instead of bleating it ut-
ters a quick, harsh noise, a kind of bark;
a little like the sound “kau,” sharply and
clearly repeated. It can be heard a long dis-
tance off; and is usually uttered when the
animal is a little startled or surprised by the
presence of something it does not under-
stand.

The prong-horn cannot go without water
any longer than a deer can, and will go great
distances to get it; for space is nothing to a
traveller with such speed and such last. No
matter how dry and barren may be the desert

ON THE PRAIRIE 27

in which antelope are found, it may be taken
for granted that they are always within
reaching distance of some spring or pool of
water, and that they visit it once a day. Once
or twice I have camped out by some pool,
which was the only one for miles around,
and in every such case have been surprised at
night by the visits of the antelope, who, on
finding that their drinking-place was ten-
anted, would hover round at a short distance,
returning again and again and continually
uttering the barking “kau, kau,” until they
became convinced that there was no hope
of their getting in, when they would set off
at a run for some other place.

Prong-horn perhaps prefer the rolling
prairies of short grass as their home, but
seem to do almost equally well on the deso-
late and monotonous wastes where the sage-
brush and prickly pear and a few blades of
coarse grass are the only signs of plant life
to be seen. In such places, the prong-horn,
the sage cock, the rattlesnake, and the horned
frog alone are able to make out a livelihood.

28 HUNTING TRIPS

The horned frog is not a frog at all, but a
lizard,—a queer, stumpy little fellow with
spikes all over the top of its head and back,
and given to moving in the most leisurely
manner imaginable. Nothing will make it
hurry. If taken home it becomes a very
tame and quaint but also very uninteresting
little pet.

Rattlesnakes are only too plentiful every-
where; along the river bottoms, in the
broken, hilly ground, and on the prairies
and the great desert wastes alike. Every
cow-boy kills dozens each season. To a man
wearing top-boots there is little or no dan-
ger while he is merely walking about, for
the fangs cannot get through the leather,
and the snake does not strike as high as
the knee. Indeed the rattlesnake is not
nearly as dangerous as are most poisonous
serpents, for it always gives fair warning
before striking, and is both sluggish and
timid. If it can it will get out of the way,
and only coils up in its attitude of defence
when it believes that it is actually menaced.

ON THE PRAIRIE 29

It is, of course, however, both a dangerous
and a disagreeable neighbor, and one of its
annoying traits is the fondness it displays
for crawling into a hut or taking refuge
among the blankets left out on the ground.
Except in such cases men are rarely in dan-
ger from it, unless they happen to be
stooping over, as was the case with one of
my cow-boys who had leaned over to pick
up a log, and was almost bitten by a snake
which was underneath it; or unless the
snake is encountered while stalking an ani-
mal. Once I was creeping up to an ante-
lope under cover of some very low sage-
brush—so low that I had to lie flat on my
face and push myself along with my hands
and feet. While cautiously moving on in
this way I was electrified by hearing almost
by my ears the well-known, ominous
“ whir-r-r ” of a rattlesnake, and on hastily
glancing up there was the reptile, not ten
feet away from me, all coiled up and wait-
ing. I backed off and crawled to one side,
the rattler turning its head round to keep

30 HUNTING TRIPS

watch over my movements; when the stalk
was over (the antelope took alarm and ran
off before I was within rifle-shot) I came
back, hunted up the snake, and killed it.
Although I have known of several men
being bitten, I Know of but one case where
the bite caused the death of a human being.
This was a girl who had been out milk-
ing, and was returning, in bare feet; the
snake struck her just above the ankle, and
in her fright she fell and was struck again
in the neck. The double wound was too
much for her, and the poison killed her in
the course of a couple of hours.
Occasionally one meets a_ rattlesnake
whose rattle has been lost or injuréd; and
such a one is always dangerous, because
it strikes without warning. I once nearly
lost a horse by the bite of one of these
snakes without rattles. I was riding along
a path when my horse gave a tremendous
start and jump; looking back I saw that it
had been struck at by a rattlesnake with
an injured tail, which had been lying hid

ON THE PRAIRIE 31

in a bunch of grass, directly beside the path.
Luckily it had merely hit the hard hoof,
breaking one of its fangs.

Horses differ very much in their conduct
toward snakes. Some show great fright
at sight of them or on hearing their rat-
tles, plunging and rearing and refusing to
go anywhere near the spot; while others
have no fear of them at all, being really per-
fectly stupid about them. Manitou does
not lose his wits at all over them, but at
the same time takes very good care not to
come within striking distance.

Ranchmen often suffer some loss among
their stock owing to snake-bites; both
horned cattle and horses, in grazing, fre-
quently coming on snakes and having their
noses or cheeks bitten. Generally, these
wounds are not fatal, though very uncom-
fortable; it is not uncommon to see a woe-
begone looking mule with its head double
the natural size, in consequence of having
incautiously browsed over a snake. A
neighbor lost a weak pony in this way; and

32 HUNTING TRIPS

one of our best steers also perished from
the same cause. But in the latter case, the an-
imal, like the poor girl spoken of above, had
received two wounds with the poison fangs ;
apparently it had, while grazing with its head
down, been first struck in the nose, and been
again struck in the foreleg as it started
away.

Of all kinds of hunting, the chase of the
antelope is pre-eminently that requiring
skill in the use of the rifle at long range.
The distance at which shots have to be taken
in antelope hunting is at least double the
ordinary distance at which deer are fired
at. In pursuing most other kinds of game,
a hunter who is not a good shot may still
do excellent work; but in prong-horn hunt-
ing, no man can make even a fairly good
record unless he is a skilful marksman. I
have myself done but little hunting after
antelopes, and have not, as a rule, been very
successful in the pursuit.

Ordinary hounds are rarely, or never,
used to chase this game ; but coursing it with

ON THE PRAIRIE 33

greyhounds is as manly and exhilarating a
form of sport as can be imagined,—a much
better way of hunting it than is shooting it
with the rifle, which latter, though needing
more skill in the actual use of the weapon,
is in every other respect greatly inferior as
a sport to still-hunting the black-tail or big-
horn.

I never but once took a trip of any length
with antelope hunting for its chief object.
This was one June, when all the men were
away on the round-up. As is usual during
the busy half of the ranchman’s year, the
spring and summer, when men have no time
to hunt and game is out of condition, we
had been living on salt pork, beans, potatoes,
and bread; and I had hardly had a rifle in
my hand for months; so, finding I had a
few days to spare, I thought I should take
a short trip on the prairie, in the beautiful
June weather, and get a little sport and a
little fresh meat out of the bands of prong-
horn bucks, which I was sure to encounter:
Intending to be gone but a couple of days,

34 HUNTING TRIPS

it was not necessary to take many articles.
Behind my saddle I carried a blanket for
bedding, and an oil-skin coat to ward off the
wet; a large metal cup with the han-
dle riveted, not soldered on, so_ that
water could be boiled in it; a lit-
tle tea and salt, and some biscuits; and a
small water-proof bag containing my half
dozen personal necessaries—not forgetting a
book. The whole formed a small, light pack,
very little encumbrance to stout old Manitou.
In June, fair weather can generally be
counted on in the dry plains country.

I started in the very earliest morning,
when the intense brilliancy of the stars had
just begun to pale before the first streak of
dawn. By the time I left the river bot-
tom and struck off up the valley of a wind-
ing creek, which led through the Bad Lands,
the eastern sky was growing rosy; and soon
the buttes and cliffs were lit up by the level
rays of the cloudless summer sun. The air
was fresh and sweet, and odorous with the
sweet scents of the spring-time that was but

ON THE PRAIRIE 35

barely passed; the dew lay heavy, in glit-
tering drops, on the leaves and the blades of
grass, whose vivid green, at this season, for
a short time brightens the desolate and
sterile-looking wastes of the lonely western
plains. The rose-bushes were all in bloom,
and their pink blossoms clustered in every
point and bend of the stream; and the sweet,
sad songs of the hermit thrushes rose from
the thickets, while the meadow larks perched
boldly in sight as they uttered their louder
and more cheerful music. The round-up
had passed by our ranch, and all the cattle
with our brands, the maltese cross and cut
dewlap, or the elk-horn and triangle, had
been turned loose; they had not yet worked
away from the river, and I rode by long
strings of them, walking in single file off to
the hills, or standing in groups to look at
me as I passed.

Leaving the creek I struck off among a
region of scoria buttes, the ground rising into
rounded hills through whose grassy cover-
ing the red volcanic rock showed in places,

36 HUNTING TRIPS

while boulder-like fragments of it were scat-
tered all through the valleys between.
There were a few clumps of bushes here and
there, and near one of them were two mag-
pies, who lit on an old buffalo skull, bleached
white by sun and snow. Magpies are birds
that catch the eye at once from their bold
black and white plumage and long tails; and
they are very saucy and at the same time
very cunning and shy. In spring we do not
often see them; but in the late fall and win-
ter they will come close round the huts and
out-buildings on the look-out for any thing
to eat. If a deer is hung up and they can
get at it they will pick it to pieces with their
sharp bills; and their carnivorous tastes and
their habit of coming round hunters’ camps
after the game that is left out, call to mind
their kinsman, the whiskey-jack or moose-
bird of the northern forests.

After passing the last line of low, rounded
scoria buttes, the horse stepped out on the
border of the great, seemingly endless
stretches of rolling or nearly level prairie,

ON THE PRAIRIE 37

over which I had planned to travel and hunt
for the next two or three days. At inter-
vals of ten or a dozen miles this prairie
was crossed by dry creeks, with, in places
in their beds, pools or springs of water, and
alongside a spindling growth of trees and
bushes ; and my intention was to hunt across
these creeks, and camp by some water-hole
in one of them at night.

I rode over the land in a general southerly
course, bending to the right or left according
to the nature of the ground and the likeli-
hood of finding game. Most of the time
the horse kept on a steady single-foot, but
this was varied by a sharp lope every now
and then, to ease the muscles of both steed
and rider. .The sun was well up, and its
beams beat fiercely down on our heads from
out of the cloudless sky; for at this season,
though the nights and the early morning and
late evening are cool and pleasant, the hours
around noon are very hot. My glass was
slung alongside the saddle, and from every
one of the scattered hillocks the country

38 HUNTING TRIPS

was scanned carefully far and near; and the
greatest caution was used in riding up over
any divide, to be sure that no game on the
opposite side was scared by the sudden ap-
pearance of my horse or myself.

Nowhere, not even at sea, does a man feel
more lonely than when riding over the iar-
reaching, seemingly never-ending plains;
and after a man has lived a little while on or
near them, their very vastness and loneliness
and their melancholy monotony have a
strong fascination for him. The landscape
seems always the same, and after the trav-
eller has plodded on for miles and miles he
gets to feel as if the distance was indeed
boundless. As far as the eye can see there is
no break; either the prairie stretches out
into perfectly level fiats, or else there are
gentle, rolling slopes, whose crests mark the
divides between the drainage systems of the
different creeks; and when one of these is
ascended, immediately another precisely like
it takes its place in the distance, and so roll
succeeds roll in a succession as intermin-

ON THE PRAIRIE | 39

able as that of the waves of the ocean. No-
where else does one seem so far off from
all mankind; the plains stretch out in death-
like and measureless expanse, and as he
journeys over them they will for many miles
be lacking in all signs of life. Although
he can see so far, yet all objects on the outer-
most verge of the horizon, even though
within the ken of his vision, look unreal and
strange; for there is no shade to take away
from the bright glare, and at a little dis-
tance things seem to shimmer and dance in
the hot rays of the sun. The ground is
scorched to a dull brown, and against its
monotonous expanse any objects stand out
with a prominence that makes it difficult to
judge of the distance at which they are. A
mile off one can see, through the strange
shimmering haze, the shadowy white out-
lines of something which looms vaguely up
till it looks as large as the canvas-top of a
prairie wagon; but as the horseman comes
nearer it shrinks and dwindles and takes
clearer form, until at last it changes into the

40 HUNTING TRIPS

ghastly staring skull of some mighty buffalo,
long dead and gone to join the rest of his
vanished race.

When the grassy prairies are left and the
traveller enters a region of alkali desert and
sage-brush, the look of the country becomes
even more grim and forbidding. In places
the alkali forms a white frost on the ground
that glances in the sunlight like the surface
of a frozen lake; the dusty little sage-brush,
stunted and dried up, sprawls over the
parched ground, from which it can hardly
extract the small amount of nourishment
necessary for even its weazened life; the
spiny cactus alone seems to be really in its
true home. Yet even in such places antelope
will be found, as alert and as abounding with
vivacious life as elsewhere. Owing to the
magnifying and distorting power of the
clear, dry plains air, every object, no matter
what its shape or color or apparent distance,
needs the closest examination. A magpie
sitting on a white skull, or a couple of ravens,
will look, a quarter of a mile off, like some

ON THE PRAIRIE 41

curious beast; and time and again a raw
hunter will try to stalk a lump of clay or a
burnt stick; and after being once or twice
disappointed he is apt to rush to the other
extreme, and conclude too hastily that a
given object is not an antelope, when it very
possibly is.

During the morning I came in sight of
several small bands or pairs of antelope.
Most of them saw me as soon as or before
I saw them, and after watching me with in-
tense curiosity as long as I was in sight and
at a distance, made off at once as soon as I
went into a hollow or appeared to be ap-
proaching too near. Twice, in scanning the
country narrowly with the glasses, from be-
hind a sheltering divide, bands of prong-horn
were seen that had not discovered me. In
each case the horse was at once left to graze,
while I started off after the game, nearly a
mile distant. For the first half mile I could
walk upright or go along half stooping ; then,
as the distance grew closer, I had to crawl
on all fours and keep behind any little broken

42 HUNTING TRIPS

bank, or take advantage of a small, dry
watercourse; and toward the end work my
way flat on my face, wriggling like a ser-
pent, using every stunted sagebrush or patch
of cactus as a cover, bare-headed under the
blazing sun. In each case, after nearly an
hour’s irksome, thirsty work, the stalk failed.
One band simply ran off without a second’s
warning, alarmed at some awkward move-
ment on my part, and without giving a
chance for a shot. In the other instance,
while still at very long and uncertain range, I
heard the sharp barking alarm-note of one
of the prong-horn; the whole band instantly
raising their heads and gazing intently at
their would-be destroyer. They were a very
long way off; but, seeing it was hopeless to
try to get nearer I rested my rifle over a little
mound of earth and fired. The dust came
up in a puff to one side of the nearest ante-
lope ; the whole band took a few jumps and
turned again; the second shot struck at
their feet, and they went off like so many
race-horses, being missed again as they ran.

ON THE PRAIRIE 43

I sat up by a sage-brush thinking they would
of course not come back, when to my sur-
prise I saw them wheel round with the pre-
cision of a cavalry squadron, all in line and
fronting me, the white and brown markings
on their heads and throats showing like the
facings on soldiers’ uniforms ; and then back
they came charging up till again within long
range, when they wheeled their line as if on
a pivot and once more made off, this time for
good, not heeding an ineffectual fusillade
from the Winchester. Antelope often go
through a series of regular evolutions, like
sO many trained horsemen, wheeling, turn-
ing, halting, and running as if under com-
mand; and their coming back to again run
the (as it proved very harmless) gauntlet of
my fire was due either to curiosity or to one
of those panicky freaks which occasionally
seize those ordinarily wary animals, and
cause them to run into danger easily avoided
by creatures commonly much more readily
approached than they are. I had fired half
a dozen shots without effect; but while no

44 HUNTING TRIPS

one ever gets over his feeling of self-indig-
nation at missing an easy shot at close quar-
ters, any one who hunts antelope and is not
of a disposition so timid as never to take
chances, soon learns that he has to expect to
expend a good deal of powder and lead be-
fore bagging his game.

By mid-day we reached a dry creek and
followed up its course for a mile or so, till
a small spot of green in the side of a bank
showed the presence of water, a little pool -
of which lay underneath. The ground was
so rotten that it was with difficulty I could
get Manitou down where he could drink;
but at last both of us satisfied our thirst, and
he was turned loose to graze, with his saddle
off, so as to cool his back, and I, after eat-
ing a biscuit, lay on my face on the ground—
there was no shade of any sort near—and
dozed until a couple of hours’ rest and feed
had put the horse in good trim for the after-
noon ride. When it came to crossing over
the dry creek on whose bank we had rested,
we almost went down in a quicksand, and it

ON THE PRAIRIE 45

was only by frantic struggles and flounder-
ings that we managed to get over.

On account of these quicksands and mud-
holes, crossing the creeks on the prairie is
often very disagreeable work. Even when
apparently perfectly dry the bottom may
have merely a thin crust of hard mud and un-
derneath a fathomless bed of slime. If the
grass appears wet and with here and there a
few tussocks of taller blades in it, it is well
to avoid it. Often a man may have to go
along a creek nearly a mile before he can find
a safe crossing, or else run the risk of seeing
his horse mired hard and fast. When a
horse is once in a mud-hole it will perhaps so
exhaust itself by its first desperate and fruit-
less struggle that it is almost impossible to
get it out. Its bridle and saddle have to be
taken off ; if another horse is along the lariat
is drawn from the pommel of the latter’s sad-
dle to the neck of the one that is in, and it
is hauled out by main force. Otherwise a
man may have to work half a day, fixing the
horse’s legs in the right position and then

46 ' HUNTING TRIPS

taking it by the forelock and endeavoring to
get it to make a plunge; each plunge bring-
ing it perhaps a few inches nearer the firm
ground. Quicksands are even more danger-
ous than these mud-holes, as, if at all deep,
a creature that cannot get out immediately is
sure to be speedily engulfed. Many parts
of the Little Missouri are impassable on ac-
count of these quicksands. Always in cross-
ing unknown ground that looks dangerous
it is best to feel your way very cautiously
along and, if possible, to find out some cattle
trail or even game trail which can be fol-
lowed.

For some time after leaving the creek
nothing was seen; until, on coming over the
crest of the next great divide, I came in sight
of a band of six or eight prong-horn about a
quarter of a mile off to my right hand. There
was a slight breeze from the southeast, which
blew diagonally across my path towards the
antelopes. The latter, after staring at me
a minute, as I rode slowly on, suddenly
started at full speed to run directly up wind,

ON THE PRAIRIE 47

and therefore in a direction that would cut
the line of my course less than half a mile
ahead of where I was. Knowing thet when
antelope begin running in a straight line they
are very hard to turn, and seeing that they
would have to run a longer distance than
my horse would to intercept them, I clapped
spurs into Manitou, and the game old fel-
low, a very fleet runner, stretched himself
down to the ground and seemed to go almost
as fast as the quarry. As I had expected,
the latter, when they saw me running, merely
straightened themselves out and went on,
possibly even faster than before, without
changing the line of their flight, keeping
right up wind. Both horse and antelope
fairly flew over the ground, their courses
being at an angle that would certainly bring
them together. Two of the antelope led, by
some fifty yards or so, the others, who were
all bunched together. Nearer and nearer we
came, Manitou, in spite of carrying myself
and the pack behind the saddle, gamely hold-
ing his own, while the antelope, with out-

48 HUNTING TRIPS

stretched necks, went at an even, regular gait
that offered a strong contrast to the spring-
ing bounds with which a deer runs. At last
the two leading animals crossed the line of
my flight ahead of me; when I pulled short
up, leaped from Manitou’s back, and blazed
into the band as they went by not forty yards
off, aiming well ahead of a fine buck who
was on the side nearest me. An antelope’s
gait is so even that it offers a good running
mark; and as the smoke blew off I saw the
buck roll over like a rabbit, with both shoul-
ders broken. I then emptied the Winchester
at the rest of the band, breaking one hind
leg of a young buck. MHastily cutting the
throat of, and opening, the dead buck, I
again mounted and started off after the
wounded one. But, though only on three
legs, it went astonishingly fast, having had
a good start; and after following it over a
mile I gave up the pursuit, though I had
gained a good deal; for the heat was very
great, and I did not deem it well to tire
the horse at the beginning of the trip. Re-

ON THE PRAIRIE 49

turning to the carcass, I cut off the hams
and strung them beside the saddle; an ante-
lope is so spare that there is very little more
meat on the body.

This trick of running in a straight line is
another of the antelope’s peculiar character-
istics which frequently lead it into danger.
Although with so much sharper eyes than a
deer, antelope are in many ways far stupider
animals, more like sheep, and they especially
resemble the latter in their habit of following
a leader, and in their foolish obstinacy in
keeping to a course they have once adopted.
If a horseman starts to head off a deer the
latter will always turn long before he has
come within range, but quite often an ante-
lope will merely increase his speed and try
to pass ahead of his foe. Almost always,
however, one if alone will keep out of gun-
shot, owing to the speed at which he goes,
but if there are several in a band which is
well strung out, the leader only cares for
his own safety and passes well ahead him-
self. The others follow like sheep, without

50 HUNTING TRIPS

turning in the least from the line the first
followed, and thus may pass within close
range. If the leader bounds into the air,
those following will often go through exactly
the same motions; and if he turns, the others
are very apt to each in succession run up
and turn in the same place, unless the whole
band are manceuvring together, like a squad-
ron of cavalry under orders, as has already
been spoken of.

After securing the buck’s hams and head
(the latter for the sake of the horns, which
were unusually long and fine), I pushed
rapidly on without stopping to hunt, to reach
some large creek which should contain both
wood and water, for even in summer a fire
adds greatly to the comfort and cosiness of
a night camp. When the sun had nearly set
we went over a divide and came in sight of
a creek fulfilling the required conditions. It
wound its way through a valley of rich bot-
tom land, cotton-wood trees of no great
height or size growing in thick groves along
its banks, while its bed contained many deep

ON THE PRAIRIE 51

pools of water, some of it fresh and good.
I rode into a great bend, with a grove of
trees on its right and containing excellent
feed. Manitou was loosed, with the lariat
round his neck, to feed where he wished un-
til I went to bed, when he was to be taken
to a place where the grass was thick and
succulent, and tethered out for the night.
There was any amount of wood with which
a fire was started for cheerfulness, and some
of the coals were soon raked off apart to
cook over. The horse blanket was spread on
the ground, with the oil-skin over it as a
bed, underneath a spreading cotton-wood
tree, while the regular blanket served as cov-
ering. The metal cup was soon filled with
water and simmering over the coals to make
tea, while an antelope steak was roasting on
a forked stick. It is wonderful how cosy a
camp, in clear weather, becomes if there is a
good fire and enough to eat, and how sound
the sleep is afterwards in the cool air, with
the brilliant stars glimmering through the
branches overhead. In the country where I

52 HUNTING TRIPS

was there was absolutely no danger from In-
dian horse-thieves, and practically none from
white ones, for I felt pretty sure no one was
anywhere within a good many miles of me,
and none could have seen me come into the
valley. Besides, in the cattle country steal-
ing horses is a hazardous profession, as any
man who is found engaged in it is at once,
and very properly, strung up to the nearest
tree, or shot if no trees are handy; so very
few people follow it, at least for any length
of time, and a man’s horses are generally
safe.

Near where we had halted for the night
camp was a large prairie-dog town. Prairie-
dogs are abundant all over the cattle coun-
try ; they are in shape like little woodchucks,
and are the most noisy and inquisitive ani-
mals imaginable. They are never found sin-
gly, but always in towns of several hundred
inhabitants ; and these towns are found in all
kinds of places where the country is flat and
treeless. Sometimes they will be placed on
the bottoms of the creeks or rivers, and again

ON THE PRAIRIE 53

far out on the prairie or among the Bad
Lands, a long distance from any water. In-
deed, so dry are some of the localities in
which they exist, that it is a marvel how they
can live at all; yet they seem invariably
plump and in good condition. They are ex-
ceedingly destructive to grass, eating away
every thing round their burrows, and thus
each town is always extending at the bor-
ders, while the holes in the middle are de-
serted; in many districts they have become
a perfect bane to the cattle-men, for the in-
coming of man has been the means of caus-
ing a great falling off in the ranks of their
four-footed foes, and this main check to their
increase being gone, they multiply at a rate
that threatens to make them a serious pest in
the future. They are among the few plains
animals who are benefited instead of being
injured by the presence of man; and it is
most difficult to exterminate them or to keep
their number in any way under, as they are
prolific to a most extraordinary degree; and
the quantity of good feed they destroy is

54 HUNTING TRIPS

very great, and as they eat up the roots of
the grass it is a long time before it grows
again. Already in many districts the stock-
“men are seriously considering the best way in
which to take steps against them. Prairie-
dogs wherever they exist are sure to attract
attention, all the more so because, unlike
most other rodents, they are diurnal and not
nocturnal, offering therein a curious case of
parallelism to their fellow denizen of the
dry plains, the antelope, which is also a creat-
ure loving to be up and stirring in the bright
daylight, unlike its relatives, the dusk-loving
deer. They are very noisy, their shrill yelp-
ing resounding on all sides whenever a man
rides through a town. None go far from
their homes, always keeping close enough to
be able to skulk into them at once; and as
soon as a foe appears they take refuge on
the hillocks beside their burrows, yelping
continuously, and accompanying each yelp
by a spasmodic jerking of the tail and body.
When the man comes a little nearer they dis-
appear inside and then thrust their heads out,

ON THE PRAIRIE 55

for they are most inquisitive. Their bur-
rows form one of the chief dangers to riding
at full speed over the plains country ; hardly
any man can do much riding on the prairie
for more than a year or two without coming
to grief on more than one occasion by his
horse putting its foot in a prairie-dog hole.
A badger hole is even worse. When a horse
gets his foot in such a hole, while going at
full speed, he turns a complete somersault,
and is lucky if he escape without a broken
leg, while I have time and again known the
rider to be severely injured. There are other
smaller animals whose burrows sometimes
cause a horseman to receive a sharp tumble.
These are the pocket-gophers, queer creat-
ures, shaped like moles and having the same
subterranean habits, but with teeth like a
rat’s, and great pouches on the outside of
their jaws, whose long, rambling tunnels
cover the ground in certain places, though
the animals themselves are very rarely seen;
and the little striped gophers and gray go-
phers, entirely different animals, more like

56 HUNTING TRIPS

ground squirrels. But the prairie-dog is al-
ways the main source of danger to the horse-
man, as well as of mischief to the cattle-
herder.

Around the prairie-dog towns it is always
well to keep a look-out for the smaller car-
nivora, especially coyotes and badgers, as
they are very fond of such neighborhoods,
and almost always it is also a favorite resort
for the larger kinds of hawks, which are so
numerous throughout the cattle country.
Rattlesnakes are quite plenty, living in the
deserted holes, and the latter are also the
homes of the little burrowing owls, which
will often be seen standing at the opening,
ready to run in as quick as any of the prairie-
dogs if danger threatens. They have a funny
habit of gravely bowing or posturing at the
passer-by, and stand up very erect on their
legs. With the exception of this species,
owls are rare in the cattle country.

A prairie-dog is rather a difficult animal
to get, as it stands so close to its burrow that
a spasmodic kick, even if at the last gasp,

ON THE PRAIRIE 57

sends the body inside, where it cannot be re-
covered. The cowboys are always practis-
ing at them with their revolvers, and as they
are pretty good shots, mortally wound a
good many, but unless the force of the blow
fairly knocks the prairie-dog away from the
mouth of the burrow, it almost always man-
ages to escape inside. But a good shot with
the rifle can kill any number by lying down
quietly and waiting a few minutes until the
dogs get a little distance from the mouths of
their homes.

Badgers are more commonly found round
prairie-dog towns than anywhere else; and
they get their chief food by digging up the
prairie-dogs and gophers with their strong
forearms and long, stout claws. They are
not often found wandering away from their
homes in the daytime, but if so caught are
easily run down and killed. A badger is a
most desperate fighter, and an overmatch for
a coyote, his hide being very thick and his
form so squat and strong that it is hard to
break his back or legs, while his sharp teeth

58 HUNTING TRIPS

erip like a steel trap. A very few seconds
allow him to dig a hole in the ground, into
which he can back all except his head; and
when placed thus, with his rear and flanks
protected, he can beat off a dog many times
his own size. A young badger one night
came up round the ranch-house, and began
gnawing at some bones that had been left
near the door. Hearing the noise one of my
men took a lantern and went outside. The
glare of the light seemed to make the badger
stupid, for after looking at the lantern a few
moments, it coolly turned and went on eat-
ing the scraps of flesh on the bones, and was
knocked on the head without attempting to
escape.

To come back to my trip. Early in the
morning J was awakened by the shrill yelp-
ing of the prairie-dogs whose town was near
me. The sun had not yet risen, and the air
had the peculiar chill it always takes on to-
ward morning, while little wreaths of light
mist rose from the pools. Getting up and
loosing Manitou to let him feed round where

ON THE PRAIRIE 59

he wished and slake his thirst, I took the
rifle, strolled up the creek valley a short dis-
tance, and turned off out on the prairie.
Nothing was in sight in the way of game;
but overhead a skylark was singing, soaring
up above me so high that I could not make
out his form in the gray morning light. I
listened for some time, and the music never
ceased for a moment, coming down clear,
sweet, and tender from the air above. Soon
the strains of another answered from a little
distance off, and the two kept soaring and
singing as long as I stayed to listen; and
when I walked away I could still hear their
notes behind me. In some ways the sky-
lark is the sweetest singer we have; only
certain of the thrushes rival it, but though the
songs of the latter have perhaps even more
melody, they are far from being as uninter-
rupted and well sustained, being rather a
succession of broken bursts of music.

The sun was just appearing when I
walked back to the creek bottom. Coming
slowly out of a patch of brush-wood, was

60 HUNTING TRIPS

a doe, going down to drink; her great, sensi-
tive ears thrown forward as she peered
anxiously and timidly round. She was very
watchful, lifting her headyand gazing about
between every few mouthfuls. When she
had drunk her fill she snatched a hasty
mouthful or two of the wet grass, and then
cantered back to the edge of the brush, when
a little spotted fawn came out and joined her.
The two stood together for a few moments,
and then walked off into the cover. The
little pond at which they had drunk was
within fifty yards of my night bed; and it
had other tenants in the shape of a mallard
duck, with a brood of little ducklings, balls
of fuzzy yellow down, that bobbed off into
the reeds like little corks as I walked by.
Breaking camp is a simple operation for
one man; and but a few minutes after break-
fast Manitou and I were off; the embers of
the fire having been extinguished with the
care that comes to be almost second nature
with the cattle-man, one of whose chief
dreads is the prairie fire, that sometimes robs

ON THE PRAIRIE ey

his stock of such an immense amount of feed.
Very little game was seen during-the morn-
ing, as I rode in an almost straight line over
the hot, parched plains, the ground cracked
and seamed by the heat, and the dull brown
blades bending over as if the sun was too
much even for them. The sweat drenched
the horse even when we were walking; and
long before noon we halted for rest by a bit-
ter alkaline pool with border so steep and
rotten that I had to bring water up to the
horse in my hat; having taken some along
in a canteen for my own use. But there was
a steep bank near, overgrown with young
trees, and thus giving good shade; and it was
this that induced me to stop. When leaving
this halting-place, I spied three figures in the
distance, loping towards me; they turned
out to be cowboys, who had been out a couple
of days looking up a band of strayed ponies,
and as they had exhausted their supply of
food, I gave them the antelope hams, trust-
ing to shoot another for my own use.

Nor was I disappointed. After leaving

62 HUNTING TRIPS

the cowboys I headed the horse towards the
more rolling country where the prairies be-
gin to break off into the edges of the Bad
Lands. Several bands of antelope were seen,
and I tried one unsuccessful stalk, not be-
ing able to come within rifle range; but to-
wards evening, when only about a mile from
a wooded creek on whose banks I intended to
sleep, I came across a solitary buck, just as
I was topping the ridge of the last divide.
As I was keeping a sharp lookout at the time,
I reined in the horse the instant the head of
the antelope came in sight, and jumping off
crept up till I could see his whole body,
when I dropped on my knee and took steady
aim. He was a long way off (three hundred
yards by actual pacing), and not having
made out exactly what we were he stood still,
looking intently in our direction and broad-
side to us. I held well over his shoulder,
and at the report he dropped like a shot, the
ball having broken his neck. It was a very
good shot; the’ best I ever made at antelope,
of which game, as already said, I have killed

ON. THE PRAIRIE 63

but very few individuals. Taking the hams
and saddle I rode on down to the creek and
again went into camp among timber. Thus
on this trip I was never successful in outwit-
ting antelope on the several occasions when
I pitted my craft and skill against their wari-
ness and keen senses, always either failing to
get within range or else missing them; but
nevertheless I got two by taking advantage
of the stupidity and curiosity which they oc-
casionally show.

The middle part of the days having proved
so very hot, and as my store of biscuits was
nearly gone, and as I knew, moreover, that
the antelope meat would not keep over
twenty-four hours, I decided to push back
home next day; and accordingly I broke
camp at the first streak of dawn, and took
Manitou back to the ranch at a smart lope.

A solitary trip such as this was, through
a comparatively wild region in which game
is still plentiful, always has great attraction
for any man who cares for sport and for
nature, and who is able to be his own com-

64 HUNTING TRIPS

panion, but the pleasure after all depends
a good deal on the weather. To be sure,
after a little experience in roughing it, the
hardships seem a good deal less formidable
than they formerly did, and a man becomes
able to roll up in a wet blanket and sleep
all night in a pelting rain without hurting
himself—though he will shiver a good deal,
and feel pretty numb and stiff in those chill
and dreary hours just before dawn. But
when a man’s clothes and bedding and rifle
are all wet, no matter. how philosophically he
may bear it, it may be taken for granted that
he does not enjoy it. So fair weather is a
very vital and important element among
those that go to make up the pleasure and
success of such a trip. Luckily fair weather
can be counted on with a good deal of cer-
tainty in late spring and throughout most of
the summer and fall o1. the northern cattle
plains. The storms that do take place,
though very violent, do not last long.
Every now and then, however, there will
be in the fall a three-days’ storm in which it

ON THE PRAIRIE 65

is almost impossible to travel, and then the
best thing to be done is to lie up under any
shelter that is at hand until it blows over.
I remember one such camp which was made
in the midst of the most singular and pic-
turesque surroundings. It was toward the
end of a long wagon trip that we had been
taking, and all of the horses were tired by
incessant work. We had come through coun-
try which was entirely new to us, passing
nearly all day in a long flat prairie through
which flowed a stream that we supposed to
be either the Box Alder or the Little Beaver.
In leaving this we had struck some heavy
sand-hills, and while pulling the loaded
wagon up them one of the team played out
completely, and we had to take her out and
put in one of the spare saddle-ponies, a tough
little fellow. Night came on fast, and the
sun was just setting when we crossed the
final ridge and came in sight of as singular
a bit of country as I have ever seen. The
cowboys, as we afterward found, had chris-
tened the place “ Medicine Buttes.” In

66 HUNTING TRIPS

plains dialect, I may explain, ‘“ Medicine”
has been adopted fron the Indians, among
whom it means any thing supernatural or
very unusual. It is used in the sense of
“magic,” or “ out of the common.”

Over an irregular tract of gently rolling
sandy hills, perhaps about three quarters of
a mile square, were scattered several hun-
dred detached and isolated buttes or cliffs of
sandstone, each butte from fifteen to fifty
feet high, and from thirty to a couple of
hundred feet across. Some of them rose as
sharp peaks or ridges, or as connected
chains, but much the greater number had flat
tops like little table-lands. The sides were
perfectly perpendicular, and were cut and
channelled by the weather into the most ex-
traordinary forms; caves, columns, battle-
ments, spires, and flying buttresses were
mingled in the strangest confusion. Many
of the caves were worn clear through the
buttes, and they were at every height in the
sides, while ledges ran across the faces, and
shoulders and columns jutted out from the

ON THE PRAIRIE 67

corners. On the tops and at the bases of
most of the cliffs grew pine trees, some of
considerable height, and the sand gave every
thing a clean, white look.

Altogether it was as fantastically beauti-
ful a place as I have ever seen: it seemed
impossible that the hand of man should not
have had something to do with its formation.
There was a spring of clear cold water a
few hundred yards off, with good feed for
the horses round it; and we made our camp
at the foot of one of the largest buttes, build-
ing a roaring pine-log fire in an angle in the
face of the cliff, while our beds were under
the pine trees. It was the time of the full
moon, and the early part of the night was
clear. The flame of the fire leaped up the
side of the cliff, the red light bringing out
into lurid and ghastly relief the bold corners
and strange-looking escarpments of the rock,
while against it the stiff limbs of the pines
stood out like rigid bars of iron. Walking
off out of sight of the circle of fire light,
among the tall crags, the place seemed al-

68 HUNTING TRIPS

most as unreal as if we had been in fairy-
land. The flood of clear moonlight turned
the white faces of the cliffs and the grounds
between them into shining silver, against
which the pines showed dark and sombre,
while the intensely black shadows of the
buttes took on forms that were grimly fan-
tastic. Every cave or cranny in the crags
looked so black that it seemed almost to be
thrown out from the surface, and when the
branches of the trees moved, the bright
moonlight danced on the ground as if it were
a sheet of molten metal. Neither in shape
nor in color did our surroundings seem to
belong to the dull gray world through which
we had been travelling all day.

But by next morning every thing had
changed. A furious gale of wind was blow-
ing, and we were shrouded in a dense, driz-
zling mist, through which at times the rain
drove in level sheets. Now and then the fog
would blow away,.and then would come on
thicker than ever ; and when it began to clear
off a steady rain took its place, and the wind

ON THE PRAIRIE 69

increased to a regular hurricane. With its
canvas top on, the wagon would certainly
have been blown over if on open ground, and
it was impossible to start or keep a fire ex-
cept under the sheltered lee of the cliff.
Moreover, the wind kept shifting, and we
had to shift too, as fast as ever it started to
blow from a new quarter; and thus in the
course of the twenty-four hours we made
a complete circle of the cliff at whose base
we were. Our blankets got wet during the
night ; and they got no drier during the day ;
and the second night, as we slept on them
they got steadily damper. Our provisions
were pretty nearly out, and so, with little to
eat and less to do, wet and uncomfortable,

we cowered over the sputtering fire, and
_whiled the long day away as best we might
with our own thoughts; fortunately we had
all learned that no matter how bad things
are, grumbling and bad temper can always
be depended upon to make them worse, and
so bore our ill-fortune, if not with stoical in-
difference, at least in perfect quiet. Next

70 HUNTING TRIPS

day the storm still continued, but the fog
was gone and the wind somewhat easier;
and we spent the whole day looking up the
horses, which had drifted a long distance be-
fore the storm; nor was it till the morning
of the third day that we left our beautiful
but, as events had made it, uncomfortable
camping-ground.

In midsummer the storms are rarely of
long duration, but are very severe while they
last. I remember well one day when I was
caught in such a storm. I had gone some
twenty-five miles from the ranch to see the
round-up, which had reached what is known
as the Oxbow of the Little Missouri, where
the river makes a great loop round a flat
grassy bottom, on which the cattle herd was
gathered. I stayed, seeing the cattle cut out
and the calves branded, until after dinner ;
for it was at the time of the year when the
days were longest. |

At last the work was ended, and I started
home in the twilight. The horse splashed
across the shallow ford, and then spent half

ON THE PRAIRIE a

an hour in climbing up through the rugged
side hills, till we reached the top of the first
great plateau that had to be crossed. As
soon as I got on it I put in the spurs and
started off at a gallop. In the dusk the
brown level land stretched out in formless
expanse ahead of me, unrelieved, except by
the bleached white of a buffalo’s skull, whose
outlines glimmered indistinctly to one side
of the course I was riding. On my left the
sun had set behind a row of jagged buttes,
that loomed up in sharp relief against the
western sky; above them it had left a bar
of yellow light, which only made more in-
tense the darkness of the surrounding heav-
ens. In the quarter towards which I was
heading there had gathered a lowering mass
of black storm-clouds, lit up by the inces-
sant play of the lightning. The wind had
totally died away, and the death-like stillness
was only broken by the continuous, meas-
ured beat of the horse’s hoofs as he galloped
over the plain, and at times by the muttered
roll-of the distant thunder.

72 HUNTING TRIPS

Without slacking pace I crossed the
plateau, and as I came to the other edge the
storm burst in sheets and torrents of water.
In five minutes I was drenched through, and
to guide myself had to take advantage of the
continual flashes of lightning; and I was
right glad, half an hour afterward, to stop
and take shelter in the log hut of a couple
of cowboys, where I could get dry and
warm.

CHAPTER II

A TRIP AFTER MOUNTAIN
SHEEP

ATE one fall a spell of bitter weather

set in, and lasted on through the early

part of the winter. For many days together
the cold was fierce in its intensity; and the
wheels of the ranch-wagon, when we drove
out for a load of fire-wood, creaked and
sang as they ground through the powdery
snow that lay light on the ground. At night
in the clear sky the stars seemed to snap and
glitter; and for weeks of cloudless white
weather the sun shone down on a land from
which his beams glanced and glistened as if
it had been the surface of a mirror, till the
glare hurt the eyes that looked upon it. In
the still nights we could hear the trees crack
and jar from the strain of the biting frost;

73

74 HUNTING TRIPS

and in its winding bed the river lay fixed like
a huge bent bar of blue steel.

We had been told that a small band of big-
horn was hanging around some very steep
and broken country about twenty-five miles
from the ranch-house. I had been out after
them once alone, but had failed to find even
their tracks, and had made up my mind
that in order to hunt them it would be neces-
sary to make a three- or four-days’ trip,
taking along the buck-board with our bed-
ding and eatables. The trip had been de-
layed owing to two of my men, who had
been sent out to buy ponies, coming in with
a bunch of fifty, for the most part hardly
broken. Some of them were meant for the
use of the lower ranch, and the men from
the latter had come up to get them. At night
the ponies were let loose, and each day were
gathered into the horse corral and broken as
well as we could break them in such weather.
It was my intention not to start on the hunt
until the ponies were separated into the two
bands, and the men from the lower ranch

ON THE PRAIRIE 15

(theElkhorn) had gone off with theirs. Then
one of the cowboys was to take the buck-
board up to a deserted hunter’s hut, which
lay on a great bend of the river near by the
ground over which the big-horn were said to
wander, while my foreman, Merrifield, and
myself would take saddle-horses, and each
day ride to the country through which we
intended to hunt, returning at night to the
buck-board and hut. But we started a little
sooner than we had intended, owing to a
funny mistake made by one of the cowboys.

The sun did not rise until nearly eight,
but each morning we breakfasted at five, and
the men were then sent out on the horses
which had been kept in overnight, to find
and drive home the pony band; of course
they started in perfect darkness, except for
the starlight. On the last day of our pro-
posed stay the men had come in with the
ponies before sunrise; and, leaving the lat-
ter in the corral, they entered the house and
crowded round the fire, stamping and beat-
ing their numbed hands together. In the

76 HUNTING TRIPS

midst of the confusion word was brought by
one of the cowboys, that while hunting for
the horses he had seen two bears go down
into a wash-out; and he told us that he could
bring us right to the place where he had
seen them, for as soon as he left it he had
come in at speed on his swift, iron-gray
horse—a vicious, clean-limbed devil, with
muscles like bundles of tense wire; the cold
had made the brute savage, and it had been
punished with the cruel curb bit until long,
bloody icicles hung from its lips.

At once Merrifield and I mounted in hot
haste and rode off with the bringer of good
tidings, leaving hasty instructions where we
were to be joined by the buck-board. The
sun was still just below the horizon as we
started, wrapped warmly in our fur coats
and with our caps drawn down over our ears
to keep out the cold. The cattle were stand-
ing in the thickets and sheltered ravines,
huddled together with their heads down, the
frost lying on their backs and the icicles

hanging from their muzzles; they stared at

ON THE PRAIRIE 17

us as we rode along, but were too cold to
move a hand’s breadth out of our way; in-
deed it is a marvel how they survive the
winter at all. Our course at first lay up a
long valley, cut up by cattle trails; then we
came out, just as the sun had risen, upon the
rounded, gently-sloping highlands, thickly
clad with the short, nutritious grass, which
curls on the stalk into good hay, and on
which the cattle feed during winter. We
galloped rapidly over the hills, our blood
gradually warming up from the motion; and
soon came to the long wash-out, cutting
down like a miniature canyon for a space
of two or three miles through the bottom of
a valley, into which the cowboy said he had
seen the bears go. One of us took one side
and one the other, and we rode along up
wind, but neither the bears nor any traces
of them could we see; at last, half a mile
ahead of us, two dark objects suddenly
emerged from the wash-out, and came out
on the plain. For a second we thought they
were the quarry ; then we saw that they were

73 HUNTING TRIPS

merely a couple of dark-colored ponies. The
cowboy’s chapfallen face was a study ; he had
seen, in the dim light, the two ponies going
down with their heads held near the ground,
and had mistaken them for bears (by no
means the unnatural mistake that it seems;
I have known an experienced hunter fire
twice at a black calf in the late evening,
thinking it was a bear). He knew only too
well the merciless chaff to which he would be
henceforth exposed ; and a foretaste of which
he at once received from my companion.
The ponies had strayed from the main herd,
and the cowboy was sent back to drive them
to the home corral, while Merrifield and my-
self continued our hunt.

We had all day before us, and but twenty
miles or so to cover before reaching the hut
where the buck-board was to meet us; but |
the course we intended to take was through
country so rough that no Eastern horse could
cross it, and even the hardy Western hunt-
ing-ponies, who climb like goats, would have
difficulty in keeping their feet. Our route

ON THE PRAIRIE 79

lay through the heart of the Bad Lands, but
of course the country was not equally rough
in all parts. There were tracts of varying
size, each covered with a tangled mass of
chains and peaks, the buttes in places reach-
ing a height that would in the East entitle
them to be called mountains. Every such
tract was riven in all directions by deep
chasms and narrow ravines, whose sides
sometimes rolled off in gentle slopes, but far
more often rose as sheer cliffs, with nar-
row ledges along their fronts. A sparse
growth of grass covered certain portions of
these lands, and on some of the steep hill-
sides, or in the canyons were scanty groves
of coniferous evergreens, so stunted by the
thin soil and bleak weather that many of
them were bushes rather than trees. Most of
the peaks and ridges, and many of the val-
leys, were entirely bare of vegetation, and
these had been cut by wind and water into
the strangest and most fantastic shapes. In-
deed it is difficult, in looking at such forma-
tions, to get rid of the feeling that their

80 HUNTING TRIPS

curiousiy twisted and contorted forms are
due to some vast volcanic upheavals or other
subterranean forces; yet they are merely
caused by the action of the various weather-
ing forces of the dry climate on the different
strata of sandstones, clays, and marls. Iso-
lated columns shoot up into the air, bear-
ing on their summits flat rocks like tables;
square buttes tower high above surrounding
depressions, which are so cut up by twisting
gullies and low ridges as to be almost im-
passable; shelving masses of sandstone jut
out over the sides of the cliffs; some of the
ridges, with perfectly perpendicular sides,
are sO worn away that they stand up like
gigantic knife blades; and gulches, wash-
outs, and canyons dig out the sides of each
butte, while between them are thrust out long
spurs, with sharp ragged tops. All such
patches of barren, broken ground, where the
feed seems too scant to support any large ani-
mal, are the favorite haunts of the big-horn,
though it also wanders far into the some-

ON THE PRAIRIE 81

what gentler and more fertile, but still very
rugged, domain of the black-tail deer.
Between all such masses of rough country
lay wide, grassy plateaus or long stretches
of bare plain, covered with pebbly shingle.
We loped across all these open places; and
when we came to a reach of broken country
would leave our horses and hunt through it
on foot. Except where the wind had blown
it off, there was a thin coat of snow over
every thing, and the icy edges and sides of
the cliffs gave only slippery and uncertain
foothold, so as to render the climbing doubly
toilsome. Hunting the big-horn is at all
times the hardest and most difficult kind of
sport, and is equally trying to both wind
and muscle; and for that very reason the
big-horn ranks highest among all the species
of game that are killed by still-hunting, and
its chase constitutes the noblest form of
sport with the rifle, always excepting, of
course, those kinds of hunting where the
quarry is itself dangerous to attack. Climb-

82 HUNTING TRIPS

ing kept us warm in spite of the bitter
weather; we only wore our fur coats and
shaps while on horseback, leaving them
where we left the horses, and doing our still-
hunting in buckskin shirts, fur caps, and
stout shoes.

Big-horn, more commonly known as
mountain sheep, are extremely wary and
cautious animals, and are plentiful in but few
places. This is rather surprising, for they
seem to be fairly prolific (although not as
much so as deer and antelope), and com-
paratively few are killed by the hunters; in-
deed, much fewer are shot than of any other
kind of western game in proportion to their
numbers. They hold out in a place long
after the elk and buffalo have been exter-
minated, and for many years aiter both of
these have become things of the past the big-
horn will still exist to afford sport to the
man who is a hardy mountaineer and skilful
with the rifle. For it is the only kind of
game on whose haunts cattle do not tres-
pass. Good buffalo or elk pasture is sure

ON THE PRAIRIE 83

to be also good pasture for steers and cows;
and in summer the herds of the ranchman
wander far into the prairies of the antelope,
while in winter their chosen and favorite re-
sorts are those of which the black-tail is
equally fond. Thus, the cattle-men are al-
most as much foes of these kinds of game as
are the hunters, but neither cattle nor cow-
boys penetrate into the sterile and rocky
* wastes where the big-horn is found. And it
is too wary game, and the labor of following
it is too great, for it ever to be much perse-
cuted by the skin or market hunters.

In size the big-horn comes next to buffalo
and elk, averaging larger than the black-
tail deer, while an old ram will sometimes be
almost as heavy as a small cow elk. In his
movements he is not light and graceful like
the prong-horn and other antelopes, his mar-
vellous agility seeming rather to proceed
from sturdy strength and wonderful com-
mand over iron sinews and muscles. The
huge horns are carried proudly erect by the
massive neck; every motion of the body is

84 HUNTING TRIPS

made with perfect poise; and there seems to
be no ground so difficult that the big-horn
cannot cross it. There is probably no animal
in the world his superior in climbing ; and his
only equals are the other species of mountain
sheep and the ibexes. No matter how sheer
the cliff, if there are ever so tiny cracks or
breaks in the surface, the big-horn will
bound up or down it with wonderful ease
and seeming absence of effort. The perpen-”
dicular bounds it can make are truly startling
—in strong contrast with its distant relative
the prong-horn which can leap almost any
level jump but seems unable to clear the
smallest height. In descending a sheer wall
of rock the big-horn holds all four feet to-
gether and goes down in long jumps, bound-
ing off the surface almost like a rubber ball
every time he strikes it. The way that one
will vanish over the roughest and most bro-
ken ground is a perpetual surprise to any one
that has hunted them; and the ewes are
quite as skilful as the rams, while even the
very young lambs seem almost as well able

ON THE PRAIRIE 85

to climb, and certainly follow wherever their
elders lead. Time and again one will rush
over a cliff to what appears certain death,
and will gallop away from the bottom un-
harmed. Their perfect self-confidence seems
to be justified, however, for they never slip
or make a misstep, even on the narrowest
ledges when covered with ice and snow. And
all their marvellous jumping and climbing is
done with an apparent ease that renders it
the more wonderful. Rapid though the
movements of one are they are made without
any of the nervous hurry so characteristic of
the antelopes and smaller deer ; the on-looker
is really as much impressed with the animal’s
sinewy power and self-command as with his
agility. His strength and his self-reliance
seem to fit him above all other kinds of game
to battle with the elements and with his brute
foes; he does not care to have the rough
ways of his life made smooth; were his
choice free his abode would still be the vast
and lonely wilderness in which he is found.
To him the barren wastes of the Bad Lands

86 HUNTING TRIPS

offer a most attractive home; yet to other
living creatures they are at all times as
grimly desolate and forbidding as any spot
-on earth can be; at all seasons they seem
hostile to every form of life. In the raging
heat of summer the dry earth cracks and
crumbles, and the sultry, lifeless air sways
and trembles as if above a furnace. Through
the high, clear atmosphere, the intense sun-
light casts unnaturally deep shadows; and
where there are no shadows, brings out in
glaring relief the weird, fantastic shapes and
bizarre coloring of the buttes. In winter
snow and ice coat the thin crests and sharp
sides of the cliffs, and increase their look of
savage wildness; the cold turns the ground
into ringing iron; and the icy blasts sweep
‘through the clefts and over the ridges with
an angry fury even more terrible than is the
intense, death-like, silent heat of midsummer.
But the mountain ram is alike proudly indif-
ferent to the hottest summer sun and to the
wildest winter storm.

The lambs are brought forth late in May

ON THE PRAIRIE 87

or early in June. Like the antelope, the dam
soon leads her kids to join the herd, which
may range in size from a dozen to four or
five times as many individuals, generally ap-
proaching nearer the former number. The
ewes, lambs, and yearling or two-year-old
rams go together. The young but full-
grown rams keep in small parties of three
or four, while the old fellows, with mon-
strous heads, keep by themselves, except
when they join the ewes in the rutting sea-
son. At this time they wage savage war
with each other. The horns of the old rams
are always battered and scarred from these
butting contests—which appearance, by the
way, has given rise to the ridiculous idea
that they were in the habit of jumping over
precipices and landing on their heads.
Occasionally the big-horn come down into
the valleys or along the grassy slopes to feed,
but this is not often, and in such cases every
member of the band is always keeping the
sharpest look-out, and at the slightest alarm
they beat a retreat to their broken fast-

838 HUNTING TRIPS

nesses. At night-time or in the early morn-
ing they come down to drink at the small
pools or springs, but move off the instant
they have satisfied their thirst. As a rule,
they spend their time among the rocks and
rough ground, and it is in these places that
they must be hunted. They cover a good
deal of ground when feeding, for the feed
is scanty in their haunts, and they walk
quite rapidly along the ledges or peaks, by
preference high up, as they graze or browse.
When through feeding they always choose
as a resting-place some point from which
they can command a view over all the sur-
- rounding territory. An old ram is peculiarly
wary. The crest of a ridge or the top of a
peak is a favorite resting-bed ; but even more
often they choose some ledge, high up, but
just below the crest, or lie on a shelf of rock
that juts out from where a ridge ends, and
thus enables them to view the country on
three sides of them. In color they harmonize
curiously with the grayish or yellowish
brown of the ground on which they are

ON THE PRAIRIE 89

found, and it is often very difficult to make
them out when lying motionless on a ledge
of rock. Time and again they will be mis-
taken for boulders, and, on the other hand,
I have more than once stalked up to masses
of sandstone that I have mistaken for sheep.

When lying down the big-horn can thus
scan every thing below it; and both while
feeding and resting it invariably keeps the
sharpest possible look-out for all danger
from beneath, and this trait makes it need-
ful for the hunter to always keep on the high-
est ground and try to come on it from above.
For protection-against danger it relies on
ears, eyes, and nose alike. The slightest
sound startles it and puts it on its guard,
while if it sees or smells any thing which it
deems may bode danger it is off like a flash.
It is as wary and quick-sighted as the ante-
lope, and its senses are as keen as are those
of the elk, while it is not afflicted by the oc-
casional stupidity nor heedless recklessness
of these two animals, nor by the intense curi-
osity of the black-tail, and it has all the

90 HUNTING TRIPS

white-tail’s sound common-sense, coupled
with a much shyer nature and much sharper
faculties, so that it is more difficult to kill
than are any of these creatures. And the
climbing is rendered all the more tiresome by
the traits above spoken of, which make it
necessary for the hunter to keep above it.
The first thing to do is to clamber up to the
top of a ridge, and after that to keep on the
highest crests.

At all times, and with all game, the still-
hunter should be quiet, and should observe
caution, but when after mountain sheep he
must be absolutely noiseless and must not
neglect a single chance. He must be careful
not to step on a loose stone or to start any
crumbling earth; he must always hunt up or
across wind, and he must take advantage of
every crag or boulder to shelter himself from
the gaze of his watchful quarry. While
keeping up as high as possible, he should not
go on the very summit, as that brings him
out in too sharp relief against the sky. And
all the while he will be crossing land where

ON THE PRAIRIE gt

he will need to pay good heed to his own
footing or else run the risk of breaking his
neck.

As far as lay in us, on our first day’s hunt
we paid proper heed to all the rules of hunt-
ing-craft ; but without success. Up the slip-
pery, ice-covered buttes we clambered, cling-
ing to the rocks, and slowly working our
way across the faces of the cliffs, or cau-
tiously creeping along the narrow ledges,
peering over every crest long and carefully,
and from the peaks scanning the ground all
about with the field-glasses. But we saw no
sheep, and but little sign of them. Still we
did see some sign, and lost a shot, either
through bad luck or bad management. This
was while going through a cluster of broken
buttes, whose peaks rose up like sharp cones.
On reaching the top of one at the leeward
end, we worked cautiously up the side, seeing
nothing, to the other end, and then down
along the middle. When about half-way
back we came across the fresh footprints of
a ewe or yearling ram in a little patch of

92 HUNTING TRIPS

snow. On tracing them back we found that
it had been lying down on the other side of a
small bluff, within a hundred yards of where
we had passed, and must have either got our
wind, or else have heard us make some noise.
At any rate it had gone off, and though we
followed its tracks a little in the snow, they
soon got on the bare, frozen ground and we
Jost them. |

After that we saw nothing. The cold, as
the day wore on, seemed gradually to chill
us through and through; our hands and feet
became numb, and our ears tingled under our
fur caps. We hunted carefully through two
or three masses of jagged buttes which
seemed most likely places for the game we
were after, taking a couple of hours to each
place; and then, as the afternoon was begin-
ning to wane, mounted our shivering horses
for good, and pushed toward the bend of the
river where we were to meet the buck-board.
Our course lay across a succession of bleak,
wind-swept plateaus, broken by deep and
narrow pine-clad gorges. We _ galloped

ON THE PRAIRIE 93

swiftly over the plateaus, where the footing
was good and the going easy, for the gales
had driven the feathery snow off the with-
ered brown grass; but getting on and off
these table-lands was often a real labor, their
sides were so sheer. The horses plunged and
scrambled after us as we led them up; while
in descending they would sit back on their
haunches and half-walk, half-slide, down the
steep inclines. Indeed, one or two of the
latter were so very straight that the horses
would not face them, and we had to turn
them round and back them over the edge,
and then all go down with a rush. At any
rate it warmed our blood to keep out of the
way of the hoofs. On one of the plateaus
I got a very long shot at a black-tail, which
I missed.

Finally we struck the head of a long,
winding valley with a smooth bottom, and
after cantering down it four or five miles,
came to the river, just after the coid, pale-
red sun had sunk behind the line of hills
ahead of us. Our horses were sharp shod,

94 HUNTING TRIPS

and crossed the ice without difficulty; and in
a grove of leafless cotton-woods, on the op-
posite side, we found the hut for which we
had been making, the cowboy already inside
with the fire started. Throughout the night
the temperature sank lower and lower, and it
was impossible to keep the crazy old hut
anywhere near freezing-point; the wind
whistled through the chinks and crannies of
the logs, and, after a short and by no means
elaborate supper, we were glad to cower
down with our great fur coats still on, under
the pile of buffalo robes and bear skins. My
sleeping-bag came in very handily, and kept
me as warm as possible, in spite of the bitter
frost.

We were up and had taken breakfast next
morning by the time the first streak of dawn
had dimmed the brilliancy of the stars, and
immediately afterwards strode off on foot,
as we had been hampered by the horses on
the day before. We walked briskly across
the plain until, by the time it was light
enough to see to shoot, we came to the foot

ON THE PRAIRIE 95

of a great hill, known as Middle Butte, a
huge, isolated mass of rock, several miles in
length, and with high sides, very steep to-
wards the nearly level summit; it would be
deemed a mountain of no inconsiderable size
in the East. We hunted carefully through
the outlying foothills and projecting spurs
around its base, without result, finding but
a few tracks, and those very old ones, and
then toiled up to the top, which, though nar-
row in parts, in others widened out into
plateaus half a mile square. Having made a
complete circuit of the top, peering over the
edge and closely examining the flanks of the
butte with the field-glass, without having
seen any thing, we slid down the other side
and took off through a streak of very rugged
but low country. This day, though the
weather had grown even colder, we did not
feel it, for we walked all the while with a
quick pace, and the climbing was very hard
work. The shoulders and ledges of the cliffs
had become round and slippery with the ice,
and it was no easy task to move up and

96 HUNTING TRIPS

along them, clutching the gun in one hand,
and grasping each little projection with the
other. Climbing through the Bad Lands is
just like any other kind of mountaineering,
except that the precipices and chasms are
much lower; but this really makes very lit-
tle difference when the ground is frozen as
solid as iron, for it would be almost as un-
pleasant to fall fifty feet as to fall two
hundred, and the result to the person who
tried it would be very much the same in each
case.

Hunting for a day or two without finding
game where the work is severe and toilsome,
is a good test of the sportsman’s staying
qualities ; the man who at the end of the time
is proceeding with as much caution and de-
termination as at the beginning, has got the
right stuff in him. On this day I got rather
tired, and committed one of the blunders of
which no hunter ought ever to be guilty;
that is, I fired at small game while on ground
where I might expect large. We had seen
two or three jack-rabbits scudding off like

ON THE PRAIRIE 97

noiseless white shadows, and finally came
upon some sharp-tail prairie fowl in a hol-,
low. One was quite near me, perched on
a bush, and with its neck stretched up offered
a beautiful mark; I could not resist it, so
knelt and fired. At the report of the rifle
(it was a miss, by the by) a head suddenly
appeared over a ridge some six hundred
yards in front—too far off for us to make out
what kind of animal it belonged to,—looked
fixedly at us, and then disappeared. We
feared it might be a mountain sheep, and that
my unlucky shot had deprived us of the
chance of a try at it; but on hurrying up
to the place where it had been we were re-
lieved to find that the tracks were only
those of a black-tail. After this lesson we
proceeded in silence, making a long circle
through the roughest kind of country.
When on the way back to camp, where the
buttes rose highest and steepest, we came
upon fresh tracks, but as it was then late in
the afternoon, did not try to follow them that
day. When near the hut I killed a sharp-

98 HUNTING TRIPS

tail for supper, making rather a neat shot,
the bird being eighty yards off. The night
was even colder than the preceding one, and
all signs told us that we would soon have a
change for the worse in the weather, which
made me doubly anxious to get a sheep be-
fore the storm struck us. We determined
that next morning we would take the horses
and make a quick push for the chain of high
buttes where we had seen the fresh tracks,
and hunt them through with thorough care.

We started in the cold gray of the next
morning and pricked rapidiy off over the
frozen plain, columns of white steam rising
from the nostrils of the galloping horses.
When we reached the foot of the hills where
we intended to hunt, and had tethered the
horses, the sun had already risen, but it was
evident that the clear weather of a fortnight
past was over. The air was thick and hazy,
and away off in the northwest a towering
mass of grayish white clouds looked like a
weather-breeder ; every thing boded a storm
at no distant date. The country over which

ON THE PRAIRIE 99

we now hunted was wilder and more moun-
tainous than any we had yet struck. High,
sharp peaks and ridges broke off abruptly
into narrow gorges and deep ravines; they
were bare of all but the scantiest vegeta-
tion, save on some of the sheltered sides
where grew groves of dark pines, now laden
down with feathery snow. The climbing
was as hard as ever. At first we went
straight up the side of the tallest peak, and
then along the knife-like ridge which joined
it with the next. The ice made the footing
very slippery as we stepped along the
ledges or crawled round the jutting shoul-
ders, and we had to look carefully for our
footholds; while in the cold, thin air every
quick burst we made up a steep hill caused
us to pant for breath. We had gone but a
little way before we saw fresh signs of the
animals we were after, but it was some time
before we came upon the quarry itself.
We left the high ground and descending
into a narrow chasm walked along its bot-
tom, which was but a couple of feet wide,

' nF a
Lor ¥

100O HUNTING TRIPS

while the sides rose up from it at an acute
angle. After following this for a few hun-
dred yards, we turned a sharp corner, and
shortly afterward our eyes were caught by
some grains of fresh earth lying on the snow
in front of our feet. On the sides, some
feet above our heads, were marks in the
snow which a moment’s glance showed us
had been made by a couple of mountain
sheep that had come down one side of the
gorge and had leaped across to the other,
their sharp toes going through the thin
snow and displacing the earth that had fallen
to the bottom. The tracks had evidently
been made just before we rounded the corner,
and as we had been advancing noiselessly
on the snow with the wind in our favor, we
knew that the animals could have no sus-
picion of our presence. They had gone up
the cliff on our right, but as that on our left
was much lower, and running for some dis-
tance parallel to the other, we concluded that
by running along its top we would be most
certain to get a good shot. Clambering in-

ON THE PRAIRIE IOI

stantly up the steep side, digging my hands
and feet into the loose snow, and grasping
at every little rock or frozen projection, I
reached the top; and then ran forward
along the ridge a few paces, crouching be-
hind the masses of queerly-shaped sandstone ;
and saw, about ninety yards off across the
ravine, a couple of mountain rams. The one
with the largest horns was broadside to-
ward me, his sturdy, massive form outlined
clearly against the sky, as he stood on the
crest of the ridge. I dropped on my knee,
raising the rifle as I did so; for a second he
did not quite make me out, turning his head
half round to look. I held the sight fairly
on the point just behind his shoulder and
pulled the trigger. At the report he stag-
gered and pitched forward, but recovered
himself and crossed over the ridge out of
sight. We jumped and slid down into the
ravine again, and clambered up the opposite
side as fast as our lungs and the slippery ice
would let us; then taking the trail of the
wounded ram we trotted along it. We had

102 HUNTING TRIPS

not far to go; for, as I expected, we found
him lying on his side a couple of hundred
yards beyond the ridge, his eyes already
glazed in death. The bullet had gone in be-
hind the shoulder and ranged clean through
his body crosswise, going a little forward ; no
animal less tough than a mountain ram
could have gone any distance at all with such
a wound. He had most obligingly run round
to a part of the hill where we could bring
up one of the horses without very much dif-
ficulty. Accordingly I brought up old Man-
itou, who can carry any thing and has no
fear, and the big-horn was soon strapped
across his back. It was a fine ram, with per-
fectly-shaped but not very large horns.

The other ram, two years old, with small
horns, had bounded over the ridge before I
could get a shot at him; we followed his trail
for half a mile, but as he showed no signs
of halting, and we were anxious to get home
we then gave up the pursuit.

It was still early in the day, and we made

ON THE PRAIRIE 103

up our minds to push back for the home
ranch, as we did not wish to be caught out
in a long storm. The lowering sky was al-
ready overcast by a mass of leaden-gray
clouds; and it was evident that we had no
time to lose. Ina little over an hour we were
back at the log camp, where the ram was
shifted from Manitou’s back to the buck-
board. A very few minutes sufficed to pack
up our bedding and provisions, and we
started home. Merrifield and I rode on
ahead, not sparing the horses; but before we
got home the storm had burst, and a furi-
ous blizzard blew in our teeth as we gal-
loped along the last mile of the river bottom,
before coming to the home ranch house; and
/as we warmed our stiffened limbs before the
log fire, I congratulated myself upon the
successful outcome of what I knew would
be the last hunting trip I should take during
that season.

The death of this ram was accomplished
without calling for any very good shooting

104 HUNTING TRIPS

on our part. He was standing still, less than
a hundred yards off, when the shot was fired ;
and we came across him so close merely by
accident. Still, we fairly deserved our luck,
for we had hunted with the most patient and
painstaking care from dawn till nightfall for
the better part of three days, spending most
of the time in climbing at a smart rate of
speed up sheer cliffs and over rough and
slippery ground. Still-hunting the big-horn
is always a toilsome and laborious task, and
the very bitter weather during which we
had been out had not lessened the difficulty
of the work, though in the cold it was much
less exhausting than it would have been to
have hunted across the same ground in sum-
mer. No other kind of hunting does as much
to bring out the good qualities, both moral
and physical, of the sportsmen who follow
it. Ifa man keeps at it, it is bound to make
him both hardy and resolute; to strengthen
his muscles and fill out his lungs.

Mountain mutton is in the fall the most

ON THE PRAIRIE 105

delicious eating furnished by any game ani-
mal. Nothing else compares with it for juici-
ness, tenderness, and flavor; but at all other
times of the year it is tough, stringy, and
worthless,

CHAPTER III
THE LORDLY BUFFALO

ONE forever are the mighty herds of
the lordly buffalo. A few solitary
individuals and small bands are still to
be found scattered here and there in the
wilder parts of the plains; and though most
of these will be very soon destroyed, others
will for some years fight off their doom and
lead a precarious existence either in remote
and almost desert portions of the country
near the Mexican frontier, or else in the
wildest and most inaccessible fastnesses of
the Rocky Mountains; but the great herds,
that for the first three quarters of this cen-
tury formed the distinguishing and charac-
teristic feature of the Western plains, have
vanished forever.

It is only about a hundred years ago that
106

ON THE PRAIRIE 107

the white man, in his march westward, first
encroached upon the lands of the buffalo,
for these animals had never penetrated in
any number to the Appalachian chain of
mountains. Indeed, it was after the begin-
ning of the century before the inroads of the
whites upon them grew at all serious. Then,
though constantly driven westward, the
diminution in their territory, if sure, was at
least slow, although growing progressively
more rapid. Less than a score of years ago
the great herds, containing many millions of
individuals, ranged over a vast expanse of
country that stretched in an unbroken line
from near Mexico to far into British Amer-
ica; in fact, over almost all the plains that
are now known as the cattle region. But
since that time their destruction has gone on
with appalling rapidity and thoroughness ;
and the main factors in bringing it about
have been the railroads, which carried
hordes of hunters into the land and gave
them means to transport their spoils to
market. Not quite twenty years since, the

108 HUNTING TRIPS

range was broken in two, and the buffalo
herds in the middle slaughtered or thrust
aside; and thus there resulted two ranges,
the northern and the southern. The latter
was the larger, but being more open to the
hunters, was the sooner to be depopulated;
and the last of the great southern herds was
destroyed in 1878, though scattered bands
escaped and wandered into the desolate
wastes to the southwest. Meanwhile equal-
ly savage war was waged on the northern
herds, and five years later the last of these
was also destroyed or broken up. The bulk
of this slaughter was done in the dozen years
from 1872 to 1883; never before in all his-
tory were so many large wild animals of one
species slain in so short a space of time.

The extermination of the buffalo has been
a veritable tragedy of the animal world.
Other races of animals have been destroyed
within historic times, but these have been
species of small size, local distribution, and
limited numbers, usually found in some par-
ticular island or group of islands; while the

ON THE PRAIRIE 109

huge buffalo, in countless myriads, ranged
over the greater part of a continent. Its
nearest relative, the Old World aurochs,
formerly found all through the forests of
Europe, is almost as near the verge of ex-
tinction, but with the latter the process has
been slow, and has extended over a period
of a thousand years, instead of being com-
pressed into a dozen. The destruction of
the various larger species of South African
game is much more local, and is proceeding
at a much slower rate. It may truthfully be
said that the sudden and complete extermi-
nation of the vast herds of the buffalo is
without a parallel in historic times.

No sight is more common on the plains
than that of a: bleached buffalo skull; and
their countless numbers attest the abund-
ance of the animal at a time not so very long
past. On those portions where the herds
made their last stand, the carcasses, dried
in the clear, high air, or the mouldering
skeletons, abound. Last year, in crossing
the country around the heads of the Big

IIo HUNTING TRIPS

Sandy, O’Fallon Creek, Little Beaver, and
Box Alder, these skeletons or dried car-
casses were in sight from every hillock,
often lying over the ground so thickly that
several score could be seen at once. A
ranchman who at the same time had made a
journey of a thousand miles across Northern
Montana, along the Milk River, told me
that, to use his own expression, during the
whole distance he was never out of sight of
a dead buffalo, and never in sight of a live
one.

Thus, though gone, the traces of the buf-
falo are still thick over the land. Their
dried dung is found everywhere, and is in
many places the only fuel afforded by the
plains; their skulls, which last longer than
any other part of the animal, are among the
most familiar of objects to the plainsman;
their bones are in many districts so plentiful
that it has become a regular industry, fol-
lowed by hundreds of men (christened
“bone hunters ” by the frontiersmen), to go
out with wagons and collect them in great

ON THE PRAIRIE III

numbers for the sake of the phosphates they
yield; and Bad Lands, plateaus, and prairies
alike, are cut up in all directions by the deep
ruts which were formerly buffalo trails.
These buffalo trails were made by the .
herds travelling strung out in single file, and
invariably taking the same route each time
they passed over the same piece of ground.
As a consequence, many of the ruts are
worn so deeply into the ground that a horse-
man riding along one strikes his stirrups on
the earth. In moving through very broken
country they are often good guides; for
though buffalo can go easily over the rough-
est places, they prefer to travel where it is
smooth, and have a remarkable knack at
finding out the best passage down a steep
ravine, over a broken cliff, or along a divide.
In a pass, or, as it is called in the West,
“draw,” between two feeding grounds,
through which the buffalo were fond of go-
ing, fifteen or twenty deep trails may be
seen ; and often, where the great beasts have
travelled in parallel files, two ruts will run

112 HUNTING TRIPS

side by side over the prairie for a mile’s
length. These old trails are frequently used
by the cattle herds at the present time, or
are even turned into pony paths by the
ranchmen. For many long years after the
buffalo die out from a place, their white
skulls and well-worn roads remain as melan-
choly monuments of their former existence.

The rapid and complete extermination of
the buffalo affords an excellent instance of
how a race, that has thriven and multiplied
for ages under conditions of life to which it
has slowly fitted itself by a process of nat-
ural selection continued for countless gen-
erations, may succumb at once when these
surrounding conditions are varied by the in-
troduction of one or more new elements, im-
mediately becoming the chief forces with
which it has to contend in the struggle for
life. The most striking characteristics of the
buffalo, and those which had been found
most useful in maintaining the species until
the white man entered upon the scene, were
its phenomenal gregariousness—surpassed

ON THE PRAIRIE 113

by no other four-footed beast, and only
equalled, if equalled at all, by one or two
kinds of South African antelope,—its mas-
sive bulk, and unwieldy strength. The fact
that it was a plains and not a forest or
mountain animal was at that time also great-
ly in its favor. Its toughness and hardy en-
durance fitted it to contend with purely nat-
ural forces: to resist cold and the winter
blasts, or the heat of a thirsty summer, to
wander away to new pastures when the feed
on the old was exhausted, to plunge over
broken ground, and to plough its way
through snow-drifts or quagmires. But one
beast of prey existed sufficiently powerful to

conquer it when full grown and in health;
and this, the grizzly bear, could only be con-
sidered an occasional foe. The Indians
were its most dangerous enemies, but they
were without horses, and their weapons,
bows and arrows, were only available at close
range; so that a slight degree of speed en-
abled buffalo to get out of the way of their
human foes when discovered, and on the

II4 HUNTING TRIPS

open plains a moderate development of the
senses was sufficient to warn them of the
approach of the latter before they had come
up to the very close distance required for
their primitive weapons to take effect.
Thus the strength, size, and gregarious hab-
its of the brute were sufficient for a protec-
tion against most foes; and a slight degree
of speed and moderate development of the
senses served as adequate guards against the
grizzlies and bow-bearing foot Indians.
Concealment and the habit of seeking lonely
and remote places for a dwelling would have
been of no service.

But the introduction of the ‘horse, and
shortly afterwards the incoming of white
hunters carrying long-range rifles, changed
all this. The buffaloes’ gregarious habits
simply rendered them certain to be seen, and
made it a matter of perfect ease to follow
them up; their keeping to the open plains
heightened their conspicuousness, while
their senses were too dull to discover their
foes at such a distance as to nullify the ef-

ON THE PRAIRIE 115

fects of the long rifles; their speed was not
such as to enable them to flee from a horse-
man; and their size and strength merely
made them too clumsy either to escape from
or to contend with their foes. Add to this
the fact that their hides and flesh were valu-
able, and it is small wonder that under the
new order of things they should have van-
ished with such rapidity.

The incoming of the cattle-men was an-
other cause of the completeness of their de-
struction. Wherever there is good feed for
a buffalo, there is good feed for a steer or
cow; and so the latter have penetrated into
all the pastures of the former ; and of course
the cowboys follow. A cowboy is not able to
kill a deer or antelope unless in exceptional
cases, for they are too fleet, too shy, or keep
themselves too well hidden. But a buffalo
neither tries nor is able to do much in the
way of hiding itself; its senses are too dull
to give it warning in time; and it is not so
swift as a horse, so that a cowboy, riding
round in the places where cattle, and there-

116 AUNTING TRIES

fore buffalo, are likely to be, is pretty sure
to see any of the latter that may be about,
and then can easily approach near enough to
be able to overtake them when they begin
running. The size and value of the animal
makes the chase after it very keen. Hunt-
ers will follow the trail of a band for days,
when they would not follow that of deer or
antelope for a half hour.

Events have developed a race of this
species, known either as the wood or tnoun-
tain buffalo, which is acquiring, and has al-
ready largely acquired, habits widely differ-
ent from those of the others of its kind. It
is found in the wooded and most precipitous
portions of the mountains, instead of on the
level and open plains; it goes singly or in
small parties, instead of in huge herds; and
it is more agile and infinitely more wary
than is its prairie cousin. The formation
of this race is due solely to the extremely se-
vere process of natural selection that has
been going on among the buffalo herds for
the last sixty or seventy years; the vast ma-

ON THE PRAIRIE 117

jority of the individuals were utterly unable
to accommodate themselves to the sudden
and complete change in the surrounding
forces with which they had to cope, and
therefore died out; while a very few of the
more active and wary, and of those most
given to wandering off into mountainous
and out-of-the-way places, in each genera-
tion survived, and among these the wariness
continually increased, partly by personal ex-
perience, and still more by inheriting an in-
creasingly suspicious nature from their an-
cestors. The sense of smell always was ex-
cellent in the buffalo; the sense of hearing
becomes much quicker in any woods animal
than it is in one found on the plains; while
in beasts of the forest the eyesight does not
have to be as keen as is necessary for their
protection in open country. On the moun-
tains the hair grows !onger and denser, and
the form rather more thickset. As a result,
a new race has been built up; and we have
an animal far better fitted to “ harmonize
with the environment,” to use the scientific

118 HUNTING TRIPS

cant of the day. Unfortunately this race
has developed too late. With the settlement
of the country it will also disappear, unless
very stringent laws are made for its protec-
tion; but at least its existence will for some
years prevent the total extermination of the
species asa whole. It must be kept in mind
that even this shyer kind of buffalo has not
got the keen senses of other large game,
such as moose; and it is more easily fol-
lowed and much more keenly and eagerly
sought after than would be any other animal
smaller and less valuable to the hunter than
itself.

“While the slaughter of the buffalo has
been in places needless and brutal, and while
it is to be greatly regretted that the species
is likely to become extinct, and while, more-
over, from a purely selfish standpoint many,
including myself, would rather see it con-
tinue to exist as the chief feature in the un-
changed life of the Western wilderness ; yet,
on the other hand, it must be remembered
that its continued existence in any numbers

ON THE PRAIRIE x19

was absolutely incompatible with any thing
but a very sparse settlement of the country ;
and that its destruction was the condition
precedent upon the advance of white civili-
zation in the West, and was a positive boon
to the more thrifty and industrious fron-
tiersmen. Where the buffalo were plenty,
they ate up all the grass that could have sup-
ported cattle. The country over which the
huge herds grazed during the last year or
two of their existence was cropped bare, and
the grass did not grow to its normal height
and become able to support cattle for, in
some cases two, in others three, seasons.
Every buffalo needed as much food as an ox
or cow; and if the former abounded, the lat-
ter perforce would have to be scarce. Above
all, the extermination of the buffalo was the
only way of solving the Indian question.
As long as this large animal of the chase
existed, the Indians simply could not be kept
on reservations, and always had an ample
supply of meat on hand to support them in
the event of a war; and its disappearance

120 HUNTING TRIPS

was the only method of forcing them to at
least partially abandon their savage mode of
life. From the standpoint of humanity at
large, the extermination of the buffalo has
been a blessing. The many have been bene-
fited by it; and I suppose the comparatively
few of us who would have preferred the con-
tinuance of the old order of things, merely
for the sake of our own selfish enjoyment,
have no right to complain.

The buffalo is easier killed than is any
other kind of plains game; but its chase is
very far from being the tame amusement it
has been lately represented. It is genuine
sport; it needs skill, marksmanship, and
hardihood in the man who follows it, and if
he hunts on horseback, it needs also pluck
and good riding. It is in no way akin to
various forms of so-called sport in vogue in
parts of the East, such as killing deer in a
lake or by fire hunting, or even by watching
at a runaway. No man who is not of an
adventurous temper, and able to stand rough
food and living, will penetrate to the haunts

ON THE PRAIRIE 121

of the buffalo. The animal is so tough and
tenacious of life that it must be hit in the
right spot; and care must be used in ap-
proaching it, for its nose is very keen, and
though its sight is dull, yet, on the other
hand, the plains it frequents are singularly
bare of cover; while, finally, there is just a
faint spice of danger in the pursuit, for the
bison, though the least dangerous of all bo-
vine animals, will, on occasions, turn upon
the hunter, and though its attack is, as a
rule, easily avoided, yet in rare cases it man-
ages to charge home. A ranchman of my
acquaintance once, many years ago, went
out buffalo hunting on horseback, together
with a friend who was unused to the sport,
and who was mounted on a large, untrained,
nervous horse. While chasing a bull, the
friend’s horse became unmanageable, and
when the bull turned, proved too clumsy to
get out of the way, and was caught on the
horns, one oi which entered its flank, while
the other inflicted a huge, bruised gash
across the man’s thigh, tearing the muscles

122 HUNTING TRIPS

all out. Both horse and rider were flung to
the ground with tremendous violence. The
horse had to be killed, and the man died ina
few hours from the shock, loss of blood, and
internal injuries. Such an accident, how-
ever, is very exceptional.

My brother was in at the death of the
great southern herds in 1877, and had a
good deal of experience in buffalo hunting;
and once or twice was charged by old bulls,
but never had any difficulty in either eva-
ding the charge or else killing the brute as it
came on. My cousin, John Roosevelt, also
had one adventure with a buffalo, in which
he received rather a fright. He had been
out on foot with a dog and had severely
wounded a buffalo bull, which nevertheless,
with the wonderful tenacity of life and abil-
ity to go over apparently inaccessible places
that this species shows, managed to clamber
up a steep, almost perpendicular, cliff. My
cousin climbed up after it, with some diffi-
culty; on reaching the top he got his elbows
over and drew himself up on them only to

ON THE PRAIRIE 123

find the buffalo fronting him with lowered
head not a dozen feet off. Immediately
' upon seeing him it cocked up its tail and
came forward. He was clinging with both
hands to the edge and could not use his rifle;
so, not relishing what was literally a téte-a-
téete, he promptly let go and slid or rather
rolled head over heels to the foot of the cliff,
not hurting himself much in the sand,
though of course a good deal jarred by the
fall. The buffalo came on till its hoofs
crumbled the earth at the brink, when the
dog luckily got up and distracted its atten-
tion; meanwhile, my cousin, having bounced
down to the bottom, picked himself up,
shook himself, and finding that nothing was
broken, promptly scrambled up the bluff at
another place a few yards off and shot his
antagonist.

When my cattle first came on the Little
Missouri three of my men took a small
bunch of them some fifty miles to the south
and there wintered with them, on what were
then the outskirts of the buffalo range, the

124 HUNTING TRIPS

herds having been pressed up northwards.
In the intervals of tending the cattle—work
which was then entirely new to them—they
occupied themselves in hunting buffalo,
killing during the winter sixty or seventy,
some of them on horseback, but mostly by
still-hunting them on foot. Once or twice
the bulls when wounded turned to bay; and
a couple of them on one occasion charged
one of the men and forced him to take
refuge upon a steep isolated butte. At
another time the three of them wounded a
cow so badly that she broke down and
would run no farther, turning to bay in a
small clump of thick trees. As this would
have been a very bad place in which to skin
the body, they wished to get her out and
tried to tease her into charging; but she
seemed too weak to make the effort. Em-
boldened by her apathy one of the men came
up close to her behind, while another was
standing facing her; and the former finally
entered the grove of trees and poked her
with a long stick. This waked her up most

ON THE PRAIRIE 125

effectually, and instead of turning on her
assailant she went headlong at the man in
front. He leaped to one side just in time,
one of her horns grazing him, ripping away
his clothes and knocking him over; as he
lay she tried to jump on him with her fore-
feet, but he rolled to one side, and as she
went past she kicked at him like a vicious
mule. The effort exhausted her, however,
and she fell before going a dozen yards far-
ther. The man who was charged had rather
a close shave; thanks to the rashness and
contempt of the game’s prowess which they
all felt—for all three are very quiet men and
not afraid of any thing. It is always a good
rule to be cautious in dealing with an ap-
parently dead or dying buffalo. About the
time the above incident occurred a party of
hunters near my ranch killed a buffalo, as
they thought, and tied a pony to its foreleg,
to turn it over, as its position was a very
bad one for skinning. ‘Barely had the pony
been tied when the buffalo came to with a
jump, killed the unfortunate pony, and

126 HUNTING TRIPS

needed a dozen more balls before he fell for
good.

At that time the buffalo would occasion-
ally be scattered among the cattle, but, as a
rule, avoided the latter and seemed to be
afraid of them; while the cattle, on the con-
trary, had no apparent dread of the buffalo,
unless it happened that on some occasion
they got caught by a herd of the latter that
had stampeded. A settler or small ranch-
man, not far from my place, was driving
in a team of oxen in a wagon one day three
years since, when, in crossing a valley, he
encountered a little herd of stampeded
buffalo, who, in their blind and heedless
terror, ran into him and knocked over the
wagon and oxen. The oxen never got over
the fright the rough handling caused them,
and ever afterward became unmanageable
and tore off at sight or smell of a buffalo.
It is said that the few buffalo left in the
country through which the head waters of.
the Belle Fourche flow, have practically

ON THE PRAIRIE 127

joined themselves to the great herds of
cattle now found all over that region.
Buffalo are very easily tamed. On a
neighboring ranch there are four which
were taken when very young calves. They
wander about with the cattle, and are quite
as familiar as any of them, and do not stray
any farther away. One of them was cap-
tured when a yearling, by the help of a
large yellow hound. The cowboy had been
chasing it some time and, finally, fearing
it might escape, hied on the hound, which
_ dashed in, caught the buffalo by the ear, and
finally brought it down to its knees, when the
cowboy, by means of his lariat secured it,
and, with the help of a companion, managed
to get it back to the ranch. Buffalo can be
trained to draw a wagon, and are valuable
for their great strength; but they are very
headstrong and stupid. If thirsty, for in-
stance, and they smell or see water, it is
absolutely impossible to prevent their going
to it, no matter if it is in such a place that

128 HUNTING TRIPS

they have to upset the wagon to get down
to it, nor how deep the mud is. When
tamed they do not seem to be as ferocious
as ordinary cattle that are allowed to go
free; but they are such strong, blundering
brutes that very few fences will hold them.

My men, in hunting buffalo, which was ©
with them an occasional occupation and not
a regular pursuit, used light Winchesters ;
but the professional buffalo hunters carried
either 40-90 or 45-120 Sharps, than which
there are in the world no rifles more ac-
curate or powerful; with the larger-cali-
bred ones (45 or 50) a man could easily
kill an elephant. These weapons are ex-
cellent for very long range work, being
good for half a mile and over; and some-
times the hunters were able to kill very many
buffalo at a time, owing to their curious
liability to fits of stupid, panic terror. ©
Sometimes when these panics seize them
they stampede and run off in headlong,
heedless flight, going over any thing in their
way. Once, in mid-winter, one of my men

ON THE PRAIRIE 129

was lying out in the open, under a heavy
roll of furs, the wagon sheet over all. Dur-
ing the night a small herd of stampeded
buffalo passed by, and one of them jumped
on the bed, almost trampling on the sleeper,
and then bounded off, as the latter rose with
a yell. The others of the herd passed al-
most within arm’s length on each side.
Occasionally these panic fits have the op-
posite effect and make them run together
and stand still in a stupid, frightened man-
ner. This is now and then the result when
a hunter fires at a herd while keeping him-
self concealed; and on rare occasions (for
buffalo act very differently at different
times, according to their moods) it occurs
even when he is in full sight. When they
are made to act thus it is called in hunters’
parlance getting a “stand” on them; and
often thirty or forty have been killed in one
such stand, the hunter hardly shifting his
position the whole time. Often, with their
long-range heavy rifles, the hunters would
fire a number of shots into a herd half a

130 HUNTING TRIPS

mile off, and on approaching would find
that they had bagged several—for the
Sharps rifle has a very long range, and the
narrow, heavy conical bullets will penetrate
almost any thing. Once while coming in
over the plains with an ox wagon two of
my cowboys surprised a band of buffaloes,
which on being fired at ran clear round
them and then made a stand in nearly their
former position; and there they stood until
the men had fired away most of their am-
munition, but only half a dozen or so were
killed, the Winchesters being too light for
such a distance. Hunting on foot is much
the most destructive way of pursuing buf-
faloes; but it lacks the excitement of chas-
- ing them with horses.

When in Texas my brother had several
chances to hunt them on horseback, while
making a trip as guest of a captain of
United States cavalry. The country
through which they hunted was rolling and
well watered, the buffalo being scattered
over it in bands of no great size. While

ON THE PRAIRIE 131

riding out to look for the game they were
mounted on large horses; when a band was
spied they would dismount and get on the
smaller buffalo ponies which the orderlies
had been leading behind them. Then they —
would carefully approach from the leeward
side, if possible keeping behind some hill
or divide. When this was no longer pos-
sible they trotted gently towards the game,
which usually gathered together and stood
for a moment looking at them. The in-
stant the buffalo turned, the spurs were put
in and the ponies raced forward for all
there was in them, it being an important
point to close as soon as possible, as buf-
falo, though not swift, are very enduring.
Usually a half a mile took the hunters up to
the game, when each singled out his animal, |
rode along-side on its left flank, so close
as almost to be able to touch it with the
hand, and fired the heavy revolver into the
loins or small of the back, the bullet rang-
ing forward. At the instant of firing, the
trained pony swerved off to the left, al-

132 HUNTING TRIPS

most at right angles to its former course,
so as to avoid the lunging charge some-
times made by the wounded brute. If the
animal kept on, the hunter, having made
a half circle, again closed up and repeated
the shot; very soon the buffalo came to a
halt, then its head dropped, it straddled
widely with its forelegs, swayed to and fro,
and pitched heavily forward on its side.
The secret of success in this sort of hunt-
ing is to go right up by the side of the buf-
falo; if a man stays off at a distance of
fifteen or twenty feet he may.fire a score of
shots and not kill or cripple his game.
While hunting this, the largest of Ameri-
can animals, on horseback is doubtless the
most exciting way in which its chase can be
carried on, we must beware of crying down
its pursuit on foot. To be sure, in the
latter case, the actual stalking and shoot-
ing the buffalo does not need on the part of
the hunter as much skill and as good
marksmanship as is the case in hunting
most other kinds of large game, and is but

ON THE PRAIRIE 133

a trifle more risky; yet, on the other hand,
the fatigue of following the game is much
greater, and the country is usually so wild
as to call for some hardihood and ability
to stand rough work on the part of the man
who penetrates it.

One September I determined io take a
short trip after bison. At that time I was
staying in a cow-camp a good many miles
up the river from my ranch; there were then
no cattle south of me, where there are now
very many thousand head, and the buffalo
had been plentiful in the country for a
couple of winters past, but the last of the
herds had been destroyed or driven out six
months before, and there were only a few
_ stragglers left. It was one of my first
hunting trips; previously I had shot with
’ the rifle very little, and that only at deer or
antelope. I took as a companion one of my
best men, named Ferris (a brother of the
Ferris already mentioned); we rode a
couple of ponies, not very good ones, and
each carried his roll of blankets and a very

134 HUNTING TRIPS

small store of food in a pack behind the
saddle.

Leaving the cow-camp early in the morn-
ing, we crossed the Little Missouri and for
the first ten miles threaded our way through
the narrow defiles and along the tortuous
divides of a great tract of Bad Lands. Al-
though it was fall and the nights were cool
the sun was very hot in the middle of the
day, and we jogged along at a slow pace,
so as not to tire our ponies. Two or three
black-tail deer were seen, some distance off,
and when we were a couple of hours on our
journey, we came across the fresh track of
a bull buffalo. Buffalo wander a great dis-
tance, for, though they do not go fast, yet
they may keep travelling, as they graze, all
day long; and though this one had evi-
dently passed but a few hours before, we
were not sure we would see him. His
“tracks were easily followed as long as he
had kept to the soft creek bottom, crossing
and recrossing the narrow wet ditch which
wound its way through it; but when he

ON THE PRAIRIE 135

left this and turned up a winding coulie that
branched out in every direction, his hoofs
scarcely made any marks in the hard
ground. We rode up the ravine, carefully
examining the soil for nearly half an hour,
however ; finally, as we passed the mouth
of a little side coulie, there was a plunge
and crackle through the bushes at its head,
and a shabby-looking old bull bison gal-
loped out of it and, without an instant’s
hesitation, plunged over a steep bank into
a patch of rotten, broken ground which led
around the base of a high butte. So quickly
did he disappear that we had not time te
dismount and fire. Spurring our horses we
galloped up to the brink of the cliff down
which he had plunged; it was remarkable
that he should have gone down it unhurt.
From where we stood we could see noth-
ing; so, getting our horses over the broken
ground as fast as possible, we ran to tne
butte and rode round it, only to see the
buffalo come out of the broken land and
climb up the side of another butte over a

136 HUNTING TRIPS

quarter of a mile off. In spite of his great
weight and cumbersome, heavy-looking
gait, he climbed up the steep bluff with ease
and even agility, and when he had reached
the ridge stood and looked back at us for a
moment; while so doing he held his head
high up, and at that distance his great
shaggy mane and huge fore-quarter made
him look like a lion. In another second he
again turned away and made off; and, be-
ing evidently very shy and accustomed to
being harassed by hunters, must have
travelled a long distance before stopping, for
we followed his trail for some miles until it
got on such hard, dry ground that his hoofs
did not leave a scrape in the soil, and yet
did not again catch so much as a glimpse
of him.

Soon after leaving his trail we came out
on the great, broken prairies that lie far
back from the river. These are by no
means everywhere level. A flat space of a
mile or two will be bounded by a low cliff
or a row of small round-topped buttes; or

ON THE PRAIRIE 137

will be interrupted by a long, gentle sloping
ridge, the divide between two creeks; or by
a narrow canyon, perhaps thirty feet deep
and not a dozen wide, stretching for miles
before there is’ a/erossine place. The
smaller creeks were dried up, and were
merely sinuous hollows in the prairie; but
one or two of the larger ones held water
here and there, and cut down through the
land in bold, semicircular sweeps, the out-
side of each curve being often bounded by a
steep bluff with trees at its bottom, and oc-
casionally holding a miry pool. At one of
these pools we halted, about ten o’clock in
the morning, and lunched; the banks were
so steep and rotten that we had to bring
water to the more clumsy of the two ponies
in a hat.

Then we remounted and fared on our
way, scanning the country far and near
from every divide, but seeing no trace of
game. The air was hot and still, and the
brown, barren land stretched out on every
side for leagues of dreary sameness. Once

138 HUNTING TRIPS

we came to a canyon which ran across our
path, and followed along its brink for a
mile to find a place where we could get into
it; when we finally found such a place, we
had to back the horses down to the bottom
and then lead them along it for some
hundred yards before finding a _ break
through which we could climb out.

It was late in the afternoon before we
saw any game; then we made out in the
middle of a large plain three black specks,
which proved to be buffalo—old bulls. Our
horses had come a good distance, under a
hot sun, and as they had had no water ex-
cept from the mud-hole in the morning they
were in no condition for running. They
were not very fast anyhow; so, though the
ground was unfavorable, we made up our
minds to try to creep up to the buffalo. We
left the ponies in a hollow half a mile from
the game, and started off on our hands and
knees, taking advantage of every sage-
brush as cover. After a while we had to
lie flat on our bodies and wriggle like

a

ON THE PRAIRIE 139

snakes; and while doing this I blundered
into a bed of cactus, and filled my hands
with the spines. After taking advantage of
every hollow, hillock, or sage-brush, we got
within about a hundred and twenty-five or
fifty yards of where the three bulls were
unconsciously feeding, and as all between
was bare ground I drew up and fired. It
was the first time I ever shot at buffalo,
and, confused by the bulk and shaggy hair
of the beast, I aimed too far back at one
that was standing nearly broadside on to-
wards me. The bullet told on his body with
a loud crack, the dust flying up from his
hide; but it did not work him any im-
mediate harm, or in the least hinder him
from making off; and away went all three,
with their tails up, disappearing over a
slight rise in the ground.

‘Much disgusted, we trotted back to where
the horses were picketed, jumped on them,
a good deal out of breath, and rode after the
flying game. We thought that the wounded
one might turn out and leave the others;

140 HUNTING TRIPS

and so followed them, though they had over
a mile’s start. For seven or eight miles we
loped our jaded horses along at a brisk
pace, occasionally seeing the buffalo far
ahead; and finally, when the sun had just
set, we saw that all three had come to a
stand in a gentle hollow. There was no
cover anywhere near them; and, as a last
desperate resort, we concluded to try to run
them on our worn-out ponies.

As we cantered toward them they faced
us for a second and then turned round and
made off, while with spurs and quirts we
made the ponies put on a burst that enabled
us to close in with the wounded one just
about the time that the lessening twilight
had almost vanished; while the rim of the
full moon rose above the horizon. The
pony I was on could barely hold its own,
after getting up within sixty or seventy
yards of the wounded bull; my companion,
better mounted, forged ahead, a little to one
side. The bull saw him coming and swerved
from his course, and by cutting across I

ON THE PRAIRIE 141

was able to get nearly up to him. The
ground over which we were running was
fearful, being broken into holes and ditches,
separated by hillocks; in the dull light, and
at the speed we were going, no attempt
could be made to guide the horses, and the
latter, fagged out by their exertions, floun-
dered and pitched forward at every stride,
hardly keeping their legs. When up within
twenty feet I fired my rifle, but the dark-
ness, and especially the violent, labored mo-
tion of my pony, made me miss; I tried to
get in closer, when suddenly up went the
bull’s tail, and wheeling, he charged me with
lowered horns. My pony, frightened into
momentary activity, spun round and tossed
"up his head; I was holding the rifle in both
hands, and the pony’s head, striking it,
knocked it violently against my forehead,
cutting quite a gash, from which, heated as I
was, the blood poured into my eyes. Mean-
while the buffalo, passing me, charged my
companion, and followed him as he made
off, and, as the ground was very bad, for

142 HUNTING TRIPS

some little distance his lowered head was
unpleasantly near the tired pony’s tail. I
tried to run in on him again, but my pony
stopped short, dead beat; and by no spur-
ring could I force him out of a slow trot.
My companion jumped off and took a
couple of shots at the buffalo, which missed
in the dim moonlight; and to our unutter-
able chagrin the wounded bull labored off
and vanished in the darkness. I made after
him on foot, in hopeless and helpless wrath,
until he got out of sight.

Our horses were completely done out ; we
did not mount them again, but led them
slowly along, trembling, foaming, and
sweating. The ground was moist in places,
and after an hour’s search we found in a
reedy hollow a little mud-pool, with water
so slimy that it was almost gelatinous.
Thirsty though we were, for we had not
drunk for twelve hours, neither man nor
horse could swallow more than a mouthfui
or two of this water. We unsaddled the
horses, and made our beds by the hollow,

ON THE PRAIRIE 143

each eating a biscuit; there was not a twig
with which to make a fire, nor any thing to
which we might fasten the horses. Spread-
ing the saddle-blankets under us, and our
own over us, we lay down, with the saddles
as pillows, to which we had been obliged
to lariat our steeds.

The ponies stood about almost too tired
to eat; but in spite of their fatigue they
were very watchful and restless, continually
snorting or standing with their ears for-
ward, peering out into the night; wild
beasts, or some such things, were about.
The day before we had had a false alarm
from supposed hostile Indians, who turned
out to be merely half-breed Crees; and, as
we were in a perfectly lonely part of the
wilderness, we knew we were in the domain
of both white and red horse-thieves, and
that the latter might in addition to our
horses try to take our scalps. It was some
time before we dozed off, waking up with
a start whenever we heard the horses stop
grazing and stand motionless with heads

144 HUNTING TRIPS

raised, looking out into the darkness. But
at last, tired out, we fell sound asleep.

About midnight we were rudely awak-
ened by having our pillows whipped out
from under our heads; and as we started
from the bed we saw, in the bright moon-
light, the horses galloping madly off with
the saddles, tied to the lariats whose other
ends were round their necks, bounding and
trailing after them. Our first thought was
that they had been stampeded by horse-
thieves, and we rolled over and crouched
down in the grass with our rifles; but noth-
ing could be seen, except a shadowy four-
footed form in the hollow, and in the end
we found that the horses must have taken
-alarm at a wolf or wolves that had come
up to the edge of the bank and looked over
at us, not being able at first to make out
what we were.

We did not expect to find the horses again
that night, but nevertheless took up the
broad trail made by the saddles as they
dragged through the dewy grass, and fol-

'

ON THE PRAIRIE 145

lowed it well in the moonlight. Our task
proved easier than we had feared; for they
had not run much over half a mile, and we
found them standing close together and
looking intently round when we came up.
Leading them back we again went to sleep ;
but the weather was rapidly changing, and
by three o’clock a fine rain began to come
steadily down, and we cowered and shiv-
ered under our wet blankets till morning.
At the first streak of dawn, having again
eaten a couple of biscuits, we were off, glad
to bid good-bye to the inhospitable pool, in
whose neighborhood we had spent such a
comfortless night. A fine, drizzling mist
shrouded us and hid from sight all distant
objects; and at times there were heavy
downpours of rain. Before we had gone
any distance we became what is termed by

‘ backwoodsmen or plainsmen, “turned

round,” and the creeks suddenly seemed to
be running the wrong way; after which we
travelled purely by the compass.

For some hours we kept a nearly straight

146 HUNTING TRIPS

course over the formless, shapeless plain,
drenched through, and thoroughly uncom-
fortable; then as we rose over a low divide
the fog lifted for a few minutes, and we
saw several black objects slowly crossing
some rolling country ahead of us, and a
glance satisfied us they were buffalo. The>
horses were picketed at once, and we ran up
as near the game as we dared, and then
began to stalk them, creeping forward on
our hands and knees through the soft,
muddy prairie soil, while a smart shower
of rain blew in our faces, as we advanced
up wind. The country was favorable, and
we got within less than a hundred yards of
the nearest, a large cow, though we had to
creep along so slowly that we were chilled
through, and our teeth chattered behind our
blue lips. To crown my misfortunes, I
now made one of those misses which a man |
to his dying day always looks back upon
with wonder and regret. The rain was
beating in my eyes, and the drops stood out
in the sight of the rifle so that I could

ON THE PRAIRIE 147

hardly draw a bead; and I either overshot
or else at the last moment must have given
a nervous jerk and pulled the rifle clear off
the mark. At any rate I missed clean, and
the whole band plunged down into a hollow
and were off before, with my stiffened and
numbed fingers, I could get another shot;
and in wet, sullen misery we plodded back
to the ponies.

All that day the rain continued, and we
passed another wretched night. Next
morning, however, it had cleared off, and as
the sun rose brightly we forgot our hunger
and sleepiness, and rode cheerily off up a
large dry creek, in whose bottom pools of
rain-water still stood. During the morning,
’ however, our ill-luck continued. My com-
‘ panion’s horse almost trod on a rattlesnake,
and narrowly escaped being bitten. While
riding along the face of a steeply-inclined
bluff the sandy soil broke away under the
ponies’ hoofs, and we slid and rolled down
to the bottom, where we came to in a heap,
horses and men. Then while galloping

148 HUNTING TRIPS

through a brush-covered bottom my pony
put both forefeet in a hole made by the fall-
ing and uprooting of a tree, and turned a
complete somersault, pitching me a good
ten feet beyond his head. And finally,
while crossing what looked like the hard
bed of a dry creek, the earth gave way
under my horse as if he had stepped on a
trap-door and let him down to his withers
in soft, sticky mud. I was off at once and
floundered to the bank, loosening the lariat
from the saddlebow ; and both of us turning
to with a will, and bringing the other pony
in to our aid, hauled him out by the rope,
pretty nearly strangling him in so doing;
and he looked rather a melancholy object
as he stood up, trembling and shaking, and
plastered with mire from head to tail.

So far the trip had certainly not been a
success, although sufficiently varied as re-
gards its incidents; we had been confined
to moist biscuits for three days as our food;
had been wet and cold at night, and sun-
burned till our faces peeled in the day; were

ON THE PRAIRIE 149

hungry and tired, and had met with bad
weather, and all kinds of accidents; in ad-
dition to which I had shot badly. But a
man who is fond of sport, and yet is not
naturally a good hunter, soon learns that if
he wishes any success at all he must both

(
|

keep in memory and put in practice An-|

thony Trollope’s famous precept: “It’s
dogged as does it.” And if he keeps dog-
gedly on in his course the odds are heavy
that in the end the longest lane will prove to
have a turning. Such was the case on this
occasion.

Shortly after mid-day we left the creek
bottom, and skirted a ridge of broken buttes,
cut up by gullies and winding ravines, in
whose bottoms grew bunch grass. While
passing near the mouth, and to leeward of
one of these ravines, both ponies threw up
their heads, and snuffed the air, turning
their muzzles towards the head of the gully.
Feeling sure that they had smelt some wild
beast, either a bear or a buffalo, I slipped
off my pony, and ran quickly but cautiously

150 HUNTING TRIPS

up along the valley. Before I had gone a
hundred yards, I noticed in the soft soil at
the bottom the round prints of a bison’s
‘hoofs; and immediately afterwards got a
glimpse of the animal himself, as he fed
slowly up the course of the ravine, some
distance ahead of me. The wind was just
right, and no ground could have been better
for stalking. Hardly needing to bend down,
I walked up behind a small sharp-crested
hillock, and peeping over, there below me,
not fifty yards off, was a great bison bull.
He was walking along, grazing as he
walked. His glossy fall coat was in fine
trim, and shone in the rays of the sun;
while his pride of bearing showed him to
be in the lusty vigor of his prime. As I
rose above the crest of the hill, he held up
his head and cocked his tail in the air.
Before he could go off, I put the bullet in
behind his shoulder. The wound was an
almost immediately fatal one, yet with sur-
prising agility for so large and heavy an
animal, he bounded up the opposite side of

ON THE PRAIRIE I5I

the ravine, heedless of two more balls, both
of which went into his flank and ranged
forwards, and disappeared over the ridge
at a lumbering gallop, the blood pouring
from his mouth and nostrils. We knew he

could not go far, and trotted leisurely along .

on his bloody trail; and in the next gully
we found him stark dead, lying almost on
his back, having pitched over the side when
he tried to go down it. His head was a re-
markably fine one, even for a fall buffalo.
He was lying in a very bad position, and it
was most tedious and tiresome work to cut
it off and pack it out. The flesh of a cow
or calf is better eating than is that of a
bull; but the so-called hump meat—that 1s,
the strip of steak on each side of the back-
bone—is excellent, and tender and juicy.
Buffalo meat is with difficulty to be dis-
tinguished from ordinary beef. At any
rate, the flesh of this bull tasted uncom-
monly good to us, for we had been without
fresh meat for a week; and until a healthy,
active man has been without it for some

152 HUNTING TRIPS

little time, he does not know how positively
and almost painfully hungry for flesh he be-
comes, no matter how much farinaceous
food he may have. And the very toil I had
been obliged to go through, in order to
procure the head, made me feel all the
prouder of it when it was at last in my
possession.

A year later I made another trip, this
time with a wagon, through what had once
been a famous buffalo range, the divide be=-
tween the Little Missouri and the Powder, at
its northern end, where some of the creeks
flowing into the Yellowstone also head up;
but though in most places throughout the
range the grass had not yet grown from the
time a few months before when it had been
cropped off down close to the roots by the
grazing herds, and though the ground was
cut up in all directions by buffalo trails, and
covered by their innumerable skulls and
skeletons, not a living one did we see, and
only one moderately fresh track, which we
followed until we lost it. Some ot the

ON THE PRAIRIE 153

sharper ridges were of soft, crumbling sand-
stone, and when a buffalo trail crossed such
a one, it generally made a curious, heart-
shaped cut, the feet of the animals sinking
the narrow path continually deeper and
deeper, while their bodies brushed out the
sides. The profile of a ridge across which
several trails led had rather a curious look
when seen against the sky.

Game was scarce on this broken plains
country, where the water supply was very
scanty, and where the dull brown grass that
grew on the parched, sun-cracked ground
had been already cropped close; still we
found enough to keep us in fresh meat; and
though no buffalo were seen, the trip was a
pleasant one. There was a certain charm
in the very vastness and the lonely, melan-
choly desolation of the land over which
every day we galloped far and wide from
dawn till nightfall; while the heavy can-
vas-covered wagon lumbered slowly along
to the appointed halting-place. On such a
trip one soon gets to feel that the wagon is

154 ON THE PRAIRIE

home; and after a tiresome day it is pleas-
ant just to lie still in the twilight by the
side of the smouldering fire and watch the
men as they busy themselves cooking or ar-
ranging the beds, while the solemn old
ponies graze around or stand quietly by the
great white-topped prairie schooner. .
The blankets and rubbers being arranged
in a carefully chosen spot to leeward of the
wagon, we were not often bothered at night,
even by quite heavy rainfalls; but once or
twice, when in peculiarly exposed places,
we were struck by such furious gusts of
wind and rain that we were forced to
gather up our bedding and hastily scramble
into the wagon, where we would at least be
dry, even though in pretty cramped quar-
ters.

CHAPTER IV

STILL-HUNTING ELK ON
THE MOUNTAIN

FTER the buffalo the elk are the first
animals to disappear from a country

when it is settled. This arises from their
size and consequent conspicuousness, and
the eagerness with which they are followed
by hunters; and also because of their gre-
gariousness and their occasional fits of
stupid panic during whose continuance
hunters can now and then work great
slaughter in a herd. Five years ago elk were
abundant in the valley of the Little Mis-
souri, and in fall were found wandering in
great bands of over a hundred individuals
each. But they have now vanished com-
pletely, except that one or two may still
lurk in some of the most remote and broken

155

156 HUNTING TRIPS

places, where there are deep, wooded ra-
vines.

Formerly the elk were plentiful all over
the plains, coming down into them in great
bands during the fall months and travers-
ing their entire extent. But the incoming
of hunters and cattle-men has driven them
off the ground as completely as the buffalo;
unlike the latter, however, they are still
very common in the dense woods that cover
the Rocky Mountains and the other great
western chains. In the old days running
elk on horseback was a highly esteemed
form of plains sport; but now that it has
become a beast of the timber and the
craggy ground, instead of a beast of the
open, level prairie, it is followed almost
solely on footand with the rifle. Its sense
of smell is very acute, and it has good eyes
and quick ears; and its wariness makes it
under ordinary circumstances very difficult
to approach. But it is subject to fits of
panic folly, and during their continuance
great numbers can be destroyed. A band

ON THE PRAIRIE 157

places almost as much reliance upon the
leaders as does a flock of sheep; and if the
leaders are shot down, the others will
huddle together in a terrified mass, seem-
ingly unable to make up their minds in
which direction to flee. When one, more
bold than the rest, does at last step out, the
hidden hunter’s at once shooting it down
will produce a fresh panic; I have known
of twenty elk (or wapiti, as they are oc-
casionally called) being thus procured out
of one band. And at times they show a
curious indifference to danger, running up
on a hunter who is in plain sight, or stand-
ing still for a few fatal seconds to gaze at
one that unexpectedly appears.

In spite of its size and strength and great
branching antlers, the elk is but little more
dangerous to the hunter than is an ordinary
buck. Once, in coming up to a wounded
one, I had it strike at me with its forefeet,
bristling up the hair on the neck, and ma-
king a harsh, grating noise with its teeth;
as its back was broken it could not get at

158 HUNTING TRIPS

me, but the savage glare in its eyes left me
no doubt as to its intentions. Only in a
single instance have I ever known of a
hunter being regularly charged by one of
these great deer. He had struck a band of
elk and wounded an old bull, which, after
going a couple of miles, received another
ball and then separated from the rest of the
herd and took refuge in a dense patch of
small timber. The hunter went in on its
trail and came upon it lying down; it
jumped to its feet and, with hair all brist-
ling, made a regular charge upon its pur-
suer, who leaped out of the way behind a
tree just in time to avoid it. It crashed past
through the undergrowth without turning,
and he killed it with a third and last shot.
But this was a very exceptional case, and in
most instances the elk submits to death with
hardly an effort at resistance; it is by no
means as dangerous an antagonist as is a
bull moose.

The elk is unfortunately one of those
animals seemingly doomed to total destruc-

ON THE PRAIRIE 159

tion at no distant date. Already its range
has shrunk to far less than one half its
former size. Originally it was found as far
as the Atlantic sea-board; I have myself
known of several sets of antlers preserved
in the house of a Long Island gentleman,
whose ancestors had killed the bearers
shortly after the first settlement of New
York. Even so late as the first years of
this century elk were found in many moun-
tainous and densely wooded places east of
the Mississippi; in New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and all
of what were then the Northwestern States
and Territories. The last individual of the
race was killed in the Adirondacks in 1834;
in Pennsylvania not till nearly thirty years
later; while a very few are still to be found
in Northrn Michigan. Elsewhere they
must now be sought far to the west of the
Mississippi; and even there they are almost
gone from the great plains, and are only
numerous in the deep mountain forests.
Wherever it exists the skin hunters and

160 HUNTING TRIPS

meat butchers wage the most relentless and
unceasing war upon it for the sake of its
hide and flesh, and their unremitting per-
secution is thinning out the herds with
terrible rapidity.

The gradual extermination of this, the
most stately and beautiful animal of the
chase to be found in America, can be looked
upon only with unmixed regret by every
sportsman and lover of nature. Excepting
the moose, it is the largest and, without ex-
ception, it is the noblest of the deer tribe.
No other species of true deer, in either the
Old or the New World, come up to it in
size and in the shape, length, and weight
of its mighty antlers; while the grand,
proud carriage and lordly bearing of an old
bull make it perhaps the most majestic-
looking of all the animal creation. The
open plains have already lost one of their
great attractions, now that we no more see
the long lines of elk trotting across them;
and it will be a sad day when the lordly,
antlered beasts are no longer found in the

ON THE PRAIRIE 16%

wild rocky glens and among the lonely
woods of towering pines that cover the
great western mountain chains.

The elk has other foes besides man. The
grizzly will always make a meal of one if
he gets a chance; and against his ponderous
weight and savage prowess hoofs and ant- -
‘lers avail but little. Still he is too clumsy
and easily avoided ever to do very much
damage in the herds. Cougars, where they
exist, work more havoc. <A bull elk in
rutting season, if on his guard, would with
ease beat off a cougar; but the sly, cunning
cat takes its quarry unawares, and once the
cruel fangs are fastened in the game’s
throat or neck, no plunging or struggling
can shake it off. The gray timber wolves
also join in twos and threes to hunt down
and hamstring the elk, if other game is
scarce. But these great deer can hold their
own and make head against all their brute
foes; it is only when pitted against Man
the Destroyer, that they succumb in the
struggle for life.

162 HUNTING TRIPS

I have never shot any elk in the imme-
diate neighborhood of where my cattle range;
but I have had very good sport with them
in a still wilder and more western region;
and this I will now describe.

During last summer we found it neces-
sary to leave my ranch on the Little Mis-
souri and take quite a long trip through.
the cattle country of Southeastern Montana
and Northern Wyoming; and, having come
to the foot of the Bighorn Mountains, we
took a fortnight’s hunt through them after
elk and bear.

We went into the mountains with a pack
train, leaving the ranch wagon at the place
where we began to go up the first steep rise,
There were two others, besides myself, in
the party; one of them, the teamster, a
weather-beaten old plainsman, who pos-
sessed a most extraordinary stock of mis-
cellaneous misinformation upon every con-
ceivable subject, and the other my ranch
foreman, Merrifield. None of us had ever
been within two hundred miles of the Big-

ON THE PRAIRIE 163

horn range before; so that our hunting trip
had the added zest of being also an explor-
ing expedition.

Each of us rode one pony, and the packs
were carried on four others. We were not
burdened by much baggage. Having no
tent we took the canvas wagon sheet in-
stead; our bedding, plenty of spare car-
tridges, some flour; bacon, coffee, sugar and
salt, and a few very primitive cooking uten-
sils, completed the outfit.

The Bighorn range is a chain of bare,
rocky peaks stretching lengthwise along the
middle of a table-land which is about thirty
miles wide. At its ‘edges this table-land
falls sheer off into the rolling plains coun-
try. From the rocky peaks flow rapid
brooks of clear, icy water, which take their
way through deep gorges that they have
channelled out in the surface of the plateau ;
a few miles from the heads of the streams
these gorges become regular canyons, with
sides so steep as to be.almost perpendicular ;
in travelling, therefore, the trail has to keep

164 HUNTING TRIPS

well up toward timber line, as lower down
horses find it difficult or impossible to get
across the valleys. In strong contrast to
the treeless cattle plains extending to its
foot, the sides of the table-land are densely
wooded with tall pines. Its top forms what
is called a park country; that is, it is cov-
ered with alternating groves of trees and
open glades, each grove or glade varying in
size from half a dozen to many hundred
acres.

We went in with the pack train two days’
journey before pitching camp in what we
intended to be our hunting grounds, fol-
lowing an old Indian trail. No one who
has not tried it can understand the work
and worry that it is to drive a pack train
over rough ground and through timber.
We were none of us very skilful at pack-
ing, and the loads were all the time slip-
ping; sometimes the ponies would stampede
with the pack half tied, or they would get
caught among the fallen logs, or in a tick-
lish place would suddenly decline to follow

ON THE PRAIRIE 165

the trail, or would commit some one of the
thousand other tricks which seem to be all
a pack-pony knows. Then at night they
were a bother; if picketed out they fed
badly and got thin, and if they were not
picketed they sometimes strayed away.
The most valuable one of the lot was also
the hardest to catch. Accordingly we used
to let him loose with a long lariat tied round
his neck, and one night this lariat twisted
up in a sage-brush, and in struggling to
free himself the pony got a half hitch round
his hind leg, threw himself, and fell over a
bank into a creek on a large stone. We
found him in the morning very much the
worse for wear and his hind legs swelled up
so that his chief method of progression was
by a series of awkward hops. Of course
no load could be put upon him, but he man-
aged to limp along behind the other horses,
and actually in the end reached the ranch on
the Little Missouri three hundred miles off.
No sooner had he got there and been turned
loose to rest than he fell down a big wash-

166 HUNTING TRIPS

out and broke his neck. Another time one
of the mares—a homely beast with a head
like a camel’s—managed to flounder into the
very centre of a mud-hole, and we spent
the better part of a morning in fishing her
out.

It was on the second day of our journey
into the mountains, while leading the pack-
ponies down the precipitous side of a steep
valley, that I obtained my first sight of elk.
The trail wound through a forest of tall,
slender pines, standing very close together,
and with dead trees lying in every direction.
The narrow trunks or overhanging limbs
threatened to scrape off the packs at every
moment, as the ponies hopped and scram-
bled over the fallen trunks; and it was dif-
ficult work, and most trying to the temper,
to keep them going along straight and pre-
vent them from wandering off to one side.
or the other. At last we got out into a
succession of small, open glades, with
boggy spots in them; the lowest glade was
of some size, and as we reached it we saw

ON THE PRAIRIE 167

a small band of cow elk disappearing into
the woods on its other edge. I was riding
a restive horse, and when I tried to jump
off to shoot, it reared and turned round,
before I could get my left foot out of the
stirrup ; when I at last got free I could get a
glimpse of but one elk, vanishing behind
a dead trunk, and my hasty shot missed.
I was a good deal annoyed at this, my
opening experience with mountain game,
feeling that it was an omen of misfortune;
but it did not prove so, for during the rest
of my two weeks’ stay, I with one excep-
tion got every animal I fired at.

A beautiful, clear mountain brook ran
through the bottom of the valley, and in an
open space by its side we pitched camp. We
were entirely out of fresh meat, and after
lunch all three of us separated to hunt, each
for his own hand. The teamster went up
stream, Merrifield went down, while I fol-
lowed the tracks of the band of cows and
calves that we had started in the morning;
their trail led along the wooded hill-crests

168 HUNTING TRIPS

parallel to the stream, and therefore to
Merrifield’s course. The crests of the hills
formed a wavy-topped but continuous
ridge between two canyon-like valleys, and
the sides fell off steeper and steeper the
farther down stream I went, until at last
they were broken in places by sheer preci-
pices and cliffs; the groves of trees too,
though with here and there open glades,
formed a continuous forest of tall pines.
There was a small growth of young spruce
and other evergreen, thick enough to give
cover, but not to interfere with seeing and
shooting to some distance. The pine trunks
rose like straight columns, standing quite
close together ; and at their bases the ground
was carpeted with the sweet-scented
needles, over which, in my moccasined feet,
I trod without any noise. It was but a little
past noon, and the sun in the open was very
hot; yet underneath the great archways of
the pine woods the air though still was cool,
and the sunbeams that struggled down here
and there through the interlacing branches,

ON THE PRAIRIE 169

and glinted on the rough trunks, only made
bright spots in what was elsewhere the uni-
form, grayish half-light of the mountain
forest. Game trails threaded the woods in
all directions, made for the most part by the
elk. These animals, when not disturbed,
travel strung out in single file, each one
stepping very nearly in the tracks of the
one before it; they are great wanderers,
going over an immense amount of coun-
try during the course of a day, and so
they soon wear regular, well-beaten paths
in any place where they are at all plentiful’.

The band I was following had, as is their
custom, all run together into a wedge-
shaped mass when I fired, and crashed off
through the woods in a bunch during the
first moments of alarm. The footprints in
the soil showed that they had in the be-
ginning taken a plunging gallop, but after
a few strides had settled into the swinging,
ground-covering trot that is the elk’s most
natural and characteristic gait. A band of
elk when alarmed is likely to go twenty

170 HUNTING TRIPS

miles without halting; but these had prob-
ably been very little molested, and there
was a chance that they would not go far
without stopping. After getting through the
first grove, the huddled herd had straight-
ened itself out into single file, and trotted
off in a nearly straight line. A mile or two
of ground having been passed over in this
way, the animals had slackened their pace
into a walk, evidently making. up their
minds that they were out of danger. Soon
afterwards they had begun to go slower,
and to scatter out on each side, browsing
or grazing.

It was not difficult work to follow up the
band at first. While trotting, their sharp
hoofs came down with sufficient force to
leave very distinct footprints, and, more-
over, the trail was the more readily made
out as all the animals trod nearly in each
other’s steps. But when the band spread
out the tracking was much harder, as each
single one, walking slowly along, merely
made here and there a slight scrape in the

ON THE PRAIRIE 17

soil or a faint indentation in the bed of pine
needles. Besides, I had to advance with the
greatest caution, keeping the sharpest look-
out in front and on all sides of me. Even
as it was, though I got very close up to
my game, they were on foot before I saw
them, and I did not get a standing shot.
While carefully looking to my footsteps I
paid too little heed to the rifle which I held
in my right hand, and let the barrel tap
smartly on a tree trunk. Instantly there
was a stamp and movement among the
bushes ahead and to one side of me; the
elk had heard but had neither seen nor smelt
me; and a second afterward I saw. the in-
distinct, shadowy outlines of the band as
they trotted down hill, from where their
beds had been made on the very summit
of the crest, taking a course diagonal to
mine. I raced forward and also down hill, —
behind some large mossy boulders, and cut —
them fairly off, the band passing directly
ahead of me and not twenty yards away,
at a slashing trot, which a few of them

172 HUNTING TRIPS

changed for a wild gallop, as I opened fire.
I was so hemmed in by the thick tree
trunks, and it was so difficult to catch more
than a fleeting glimpse of each animal, that
though I had fired four shots I only brought
down one elk, a full-grown cow, with a
broken neck, dead in its tracks; but I also
broke the hind leg of a bull calf. Elk offer
easy marks when in motion, much easier
than deer, because of their trotting gait,
and their regular, deliberate movements.
They look very handsome as they trot
through a wood, stepping lightly and easily
over the dead trunks and crashing through
the underbrush, with the head held up and
nose pointing forward. In galloping, how-
ever, the neck is thrust straight out in front,
and the animal moves with labored bounds,
which carry it along rapidly but soon tire
it out.

After thrusting the hunting-knife into
the throat of the cow, I followed the trail of
the band; and in an open glade, filled with
tall sage-brush, came across and finished

ON THE PRAIRIE 173

the wounded calf. Meanwhile the others ran
directly across Merrifield’s path, and he
shot two. This gave us much more meat
than we wished; nor would we have shot
as many, but neither of us could reckon
upon the other’s getting as much game, and
flesh was a necessity. Leaving Merrifield
to skin and cut up the dead animals, I
walked back to camp where I found the
teamster, who had brought in the hams
and tongues of two deer he had shot, and
sent him back with a pack-pony for the
hides and meat of the elk. Elk tongues are
most delicious eating, being juicy, tender,
and well flavored; they are excellent to
take out as a lunch on a long hunting trip.

We now had more than enough meat in
“camp, and did not shoot at another cow or
calf elk while on the mountains, though we
saw quite a number; the last day of my
stay I was within fifty yards of two that
were walking quietly through a very dense,
swampy wood. But it took me some time
longer before I got any fine heads.

174 HUNTING TRIPS

The day after killing the cow and calf
I went out in the morning by myself and
hunted through the woods up toward the
rocky peaks, going above timber line, and
not reaching camp until after nightfall. In
hunting through a wild and unknown coun-
try a man must always take great care not.
to get lost. In the first place he should
never, under any conceivable circumstances,
stir fifty yards from camp without a com-
pass, plenty of matches, and his rifle; then
he need never feel nervous, even if he is
lost, for he can keep himself from cold and
hunger, and can steer a straight course
until he reaches some settlement. But he
should not get lost at all. Old plainsmen
or backwoodsmen get to have almost an in-
stinct for finding their way, and are able
to tell where they are and the way home in
almost any place; probably they keep in-
their heads an accurate idea of their course
and of the general lay of the land. But
most men cannot do this. In hunting
through a new country a man should, if

ON THE PRAIRIE 175

possible, choose some prominent landmarks,
and then should learn how they look from
different sides—for they will with difficulty
be recognized as the same objects, if seen
from different points of view. If he gets
out of sight of these, he should choose an-
other to work back to, as a kind of half-
way point; and so on. He should keep
looking back; it is wonderful how different
a country looks when following back on
one’s trail. If possible, he should locate
his camp, in his mind, with reference to a
line, and not a point; he should take a river
or a long ridge, for example. Then at any
time he can strike back to this line and fol-
low it up or down till he gets home.

If possible, I always spend the first day,
when on new ground, in hunting up-stream.
Then, so long as I am sure [ do not wander
off into the valleys or creeks of another
water-course, I am safe, for, no matter on
what remote branch, all I have to do is to
follow down-stream until I reach camp;
while if I was below camp, it would

176 HUNTING TRIPS

be difficult to tell which fork to fol-
low up every time the stream branched. A
man should always notice the position of the
sun, the direction from which the wind
blows, the slope of the water-courses, promi-
nent features in the landscape, and so forth,
and should keep in mind his own general
course; and he had better err on the side of
caution rather than on that of boldness.
Getting lost is very uncomfortable, both for
the man himself and for those who have to
break up their work and hunt for him. Deep
woods or perfectly flat, open country are al-
most equally easy places in which to get lost;
while if the country is moderately open and
level, with only here and there a prominent
and easily recognized hill or butte, a man can
safely go where he wishes, hardly paying any
heed to his course. But even here he should
know his general direction from camp, so as
to be able to steer for it with a compass if
a fog comes up. And if he leaves his horse
hidden in a gully or pocket while he goes
off to hunt on foot, he must recollect to keep

ON THE PRAIRIE 177

the place well in his mind; on one occasion
when I feared that somebody might meddle
with my horse, I hid him so successfully that
I spent the better part of a day in finding
him.

Keeping in mind the above given rules,
when I left camp the morning after the
breaking up of the band of cows and calves,
I hunted up-stream, and across and through
the wooded spurs dividing the little brooks
that formed its head waters. No game was
encountered, except some blue grouse, which
I saw when near camp on my return, and
shot for the pot. These blue grouse are the
largest species found in America, except the
sage fowl. They are exclusively birds of
the deep mountain forests, and in their man-
ners remind one of the spruce grouse of the
Northeastern woods, being almost equally
tame. When alarmed, they fly at once into
a tree, and several can often be shot before
the remainder take fright and are off. On
this trip we killed a good many, shooting
off their heads with our rifles. They formed

178 HUNTING TRIPS

a most welcome addition to our bill of fare,
the meat being white and excellent. A curi-
ous peculiarity in their flesh is that the breast
meat has in it a layer of much darker color.
They are very handsome birds, and furnish
dainty food to men wearied of venison; but,
unless their heads are knocked off with a
rifle, they do not furnish much sport, as
they will not fly off when flushed, but simply
rise into a fairly tall tree, and there sit, mo-
tionless, except that the head is twisted and
bobbed round to observe the acts of the foe.

All of the sights and sounds in these pine
woods that clothed the Bighorn Mountains
reminded me of the similar ones seen and
heard in the great, sombre forests of Maine
and the Adirondacks. The animals and birds”
were much the same. As in the East, there
were red squirrels, chipmunks, red hares, and |
woodchucks, all of them differing but slightly
from our common kinds; woodpeckers,
chickadees, nuthatches, and whiskey jacks
came about camp; ravens and eagles flew
over the rocky cliffs. There were some new

ON THE PRAIRIE 179

forms, however. The nutcracker, a large,
noisy, crow-like bird, with many of the
habits of a woodpecker, was common, and
in the rocks above timber line, we came upon
the Little Chief hare, a wee animal, with a
shrill, timorous squeak.

During our stay upon the mountains the
weather was generally clear, but always cold,
thin ice covering the dark waters of the
small mountain tarns, and there were slight
snow-falls every two or three days; but we
were only kept in camp one day, when it
sleeted, snowed, and rained from dawn till
nightfall. We passed this day very com-
fortably, however. I had far too much fore-
thought to go into the woods without a small
supply of books for just such occasions. We
had rigged the canvas wagon sheet into a
tent, at the bottom of the ravine, near_the
willow-covered brink of the brook that ran
through it. The steep hill-sides bounding
the valley, which a little below us became
sheer cliffs, were partly covered with great
pines and spruces, and partly open ground

180 HUNTING TRIPS

grown up with tall grass and sage-brush.
We were thus well sheltered from the wind;
and when one morning we looked out and
saw the wet snow lying on the ground, and
with its weight bending down the willow
bushes and loading the tall evergreens, while
the freezing sleet rattled against the canvas,
we simply started a roaring fire of pine logs
in front of the tent, and passed a cosy day
inside, cleaning guns, reading, and playing
cards. Blue grouse, elk hams, and deer sad-
dles hung from the trees around, so we had
no fear of starvation. Still, towards evening
we got a little tired, and I could not resist
taking a couple of hours’ brisk ride in the
mist, through a chain of open glades that
sloped off from our camp.

Later on we made a camp at the head of
a great natural meadow, whre two streams
joined together, and in times long gone by
had been dammed by the beaver. This had
at first choked up the passage and made a
small lake; then dams were built higher and
higher up, making chains of little ponds.

ON THE PRAIRIE 181

By degrees these filled up, and the whole
valley became a broad marshy meadow,
through which the brook wound between
rows of willows and alders. These beaver
meadows are very common; but are not usu-
ally of such large size. Around this camp
there was very little game; but we got a fine
mess of spotted trout by taking a long and
most toilsome walk up to a little lake lying
very near timber line. Our rods and lines
were most primitive, consisting of two
clumsy dead cedars (the only trees within
reach), about six feet of string tied to one
and a piece of catgut to the other, with pre-
posterous hooks; yet the trout were so rave-
nous that we caught them at the rate of about
one a minute; and they formed another wel-
come change in our camp fare. This lake lay
in a valley whose sides were so steep and
boulder-covered as to need hard climbing to
get into and out of it. Every day in the
cold, clear weather we tramped miles and
miles through the woods and mountains,
which, after a snow-storm took on a really

182 HUNTING TRIPS

wintry look ; while in the moonlight the snow-
laden forests shone and sparkled like crystal.
The dweller in cities has but a faint idea of
_ the way we ate and slept.

One day Merrifield and I went out to-
gether and had a rather exciting chase after
some bull elk. The previous evening, to-
ward sunset, I had seen three bulls trotting
off across an open glade toward a great
stretch of forest and broken ground, up near
the foot of the rocky peaks. Next morning
early we started off to hunt through this
country. The walking was hard work, es-
pecially up and down the steep cliffs, covered
with slippery pine needles; or among the
windfalls, where the rows of dead trees lay
piled up across one another in the wildest
confusion. We saw nothing until we came to

a large patch of burnt ground, where we at”

once found the soft, black soil marked up by
elk hoofs ; nor had we penetrated into it more
than a few hundred yards before we came
to tracks made but a few minutes before,
and almost instantly afterward saw three bull

= ———

ON THE PRAIRIE 183

elk, probably those I had seen on the pre-
ceding day. We had been running briskly
up-hill through the soft, heavy loam, in
which our feet made no noise but slipped and
sank deeply ; as a consequence, I was all out
of breath and my hand so unsteady that I
missed my first shot. Elk, however, do not
vanish with the instantaneous rapidity of
frightened deer, and these three trotted off
in a direction quartering to us. I doubt if I
ever went through more violent exertion than
in the next ten minutes. We raced after
them at full speed, opening fire; I wounded
all three, but none of the wounds were im-
mediately disabling. They trotted on and
we panted afterwards, slipping on the wet
earth, pitching headlong over charred
stumps, leaping on dead logs that broke be-
neath our weight, more than once measur-
ing our full-length on the ground, halting
and firing whenever we got a chance. At
last one bull fell; we passed him by after
the others which were still running up-hill.
The sweat streamed into my eyes and made

184 HUNTING TRIPS

furrows in the sooty mud that covered my
face, from having fallen full length down
on the burnt earth; I sobbed for breath as
I toiled at a shambling trot after them, as
nearly done out as could well be. At this
moment they turned down-hill. It was a
great relief; a man who is too done up to
go a steep up-hill can still run fast enough
down; with a last spurt I closed in near
enough to fire again; one elk fell; the other
went off at a walk. We passed the second
elk and I kept on alone after the third, not
able to go at more than a slow trot myself,
and too much winded to dare risk a shot at
any distance. He got out of the burnt patch,
going into some thick timber in a deep ra-
vine; I closed pretty well, and rushed after
him into a thicket of young evergreens.
Hardly was I in when there was a scramble
and bounce among them and I caught a
glimpse of a yellow body moving out to one
side; I ran out toward the edge and fired
through the twigs at the moving beast.
Down it went, but when I ran up, to my dis-

ON THE PRAIRIE 185

gust I found that I had jumped and killed,
in my haste, a black-tail deer, which must
have been already roused by the passage of
- the wounded elk. I at once took up the
trail of the latter again, but after a little
while the blood grew less, and ceased, and I
lost the track; nor could I find it, hunt as
hard as I might. The poor beast could not
have gone five hundred yards; yet we never
found the carcass.

Then I walked slowly back past the deer
I had slain by so curious a mischance, to the
elk. The first one shot down was already
dead. The second was only wounded,
though it could not rise. When it saw us
coming it sought to hide from us by laying
its neck flat on the ground, but when we
came up close it raised its head and looked
proudly at us, the heavy mane bristling up
on the neck, while its eyes glared and its
teeth grated together. I felt really sorry to
kill it. Though these were both well-known
-elks, their antlers, of ten points, were small,
twisted, and ill-shaped; in fact hardly worth

186 HUNTING TRIPS

preserving, except to call to mind a chase
in which during a few minutes I did as much
downright hard work as it has often fallen to
my lot todo. The burnt earth had blackened
our faces and hands till we looked like ne-
groes.

The bull elk had at this time begun call-
ing, and several times they were heard right
round camp at night, challenging one another
or calling to the cows. Their calling is
known to hunters as “ whistling”; but this
is a most inappropriate name for it. It is
a most singular and beautiful sound, and is
very much the most musical cry uttered by
any four-footed beast. When heard for the
first time it is almost impossible to believe
that it is the call of an animal; it sounds
far more as if made by an A®olian harp or
some strange wind instrument. It consists
of quite a series of notes uttered continu-
ously, in a most soft, musical, vibrant tone,
so clearly that they can be heard half a
mile off. Heard in the clear, frosty moon-
light from the depths of the rugged and for-

ON THE PRAIRIE 187

est-clad mountains the effect is most beauti-
ful; for its charm is heightened by the wild
and desolate surroundings. It has the sus-
tained, varied melody of some bird songs,
with, of course, a hundred-fold greater
power. Now and then, however, the per-
formance is marred by the elk’s apparently
getting out of breath towards the close, and
winding up with two or three gasping notes
which have an unpleasantly mule-like sound.
enflhie great pine-clad mountains, their for-
ests studded with open glades, were the best
of places for the still-hunter’s craft. Going
noiselessly through them in our dull-colored
buckskin and noiseless moccasins, we kept
getting glimpses, as it were, of the inner life
of the mountains. Each animal that we saw
had its own individuality. Aside from the
thrill and tingle that a hunter experiences at
the sight of his game, I by degrees grew to
feel as if I had a personal interest in the dif-
ferent traits and habits of the wild creatures.
The characters of the animals differed
widely, and the differences were typified by

1838 HUNTING TRIPS

their actions; and it was pleasant to watch
them in their own homes, myself unseen,
when after stealthy, silent progress through
the sombre and soundless depths of the
woods I came upon them going about the or-
dinary business of their lives. The lumbering,
self-confident gait of the bears, their burly
strength, and their half-humorous, half-fero-
cious look, gave me a real insight into their
character; and I never was more impressed |
by the exhibition of vast, physical power,
than when watching from an ambush a
grizzly burying or covering up an elk car-
cass. His motions looked awkward, but it
was marvellous to see the ease and absence
of effort with which he would scoop out
great holes in the earth, or twitch the heavy
carcass from side to side. And the proud,
graceful, half-timid, half-defiant bearing of
the elk was in its own way quite as note-
worthy; they seemed to glory in their own
power and beauty, and yet to be ever on the
watch for foes against whom they knew they
might not dare to contend. The true still-

ON THE PRAIRIE 189

hunter should be a lover of nature as well as
of sport, or he will miss half the pleasure of
being in the woods.

The finest bull, with the best head that I
got, was killed in the midst of very beautiful
and grand surroundings. We had been hunt-
ing through a great pine wood which ran up
to the edge of a broad canyon-like valley,
bounded by sheer walls of rock. There were
fresh tracks of elk about, and we had been
advancing up wind with even more than our
usual caution when, on stepping out into
a patch of open ground, near the edge of
the cliff, we came upon a great bull, beating
and thrashing his antlers against a young
tree, about eighty yards off. He stopped
and faced us for a second, his mighty ant-
lers thrown in the air, as he held his head
aloft. Behind him towered the tall and
sombre pines, while at his feet the jutting
crags overhung the deep chasm below, that
stretched off between high walls of barren
and snow-streaked rocks, the evergreens
clinging to their. sides, while along the bot-

190 HUNTING TRIPS

tom the rapid torrent gathered in places into
black and sullen mountain lakes. As the
bull turned to run I struck him just behind
the shoulder; he reeled to the death-blow,
but staggered gamely on a few rods into
the forest before sinking to the ground, with
my second bullet through his lungs.

Two or three days later than this I killed
another bull, nearly as large, in the same
patch of woods in which I had slain the
first. A bear had been feeding on the carcass
of the latter, and, after a vain effort to find
his den, we determined to beat through the
woods and try to start him up. Accord-
ingly, Merrifield, the teamster, and myself
took parallel courses some three hundred
yards apart, and started at one end to walk
through to the other. I doubt if the team-
ster much wished to meet a bear alone
(while nothing would have given Merrifield
more hearty and unaffected enjoyment than
to have encountered an entire family), and
he gradually edged in pretty close to me.
Where the woods became pretty open I saw

ON THE PRAIRIE 191

him suddenly lift his rifle and fire, and im-
mediately afterwards a splendid bull elk
trotted past in front of me, evidently un-
touched, the teamster having missed. The
elk ran to the other side of two trees that
stood close together some seventy yards off,
and stopped for a moment to look round.
Kneeling down I fired at the only part of
his body I could see between the two trees,
and sent a bullet into his flank. Away he
went, and I after, running in my moccasins
over the moss and pine needles for all there
was in me. If a wounded elk gets fairly
started he will go at a measured trot for
many hours, and even if mortally hurt may
run twenty miles before falling ; while at the
same time he does not start off at full speed,
and will often give an active hunter a chance
for another shot as he turns and changes his
course preparatory to taking a straight
line. So I raced along after the ek at my
very best speed for a few hundred feet, and
then got another shot as he went across a
little glade, injuring his hip somewhat.

192 HUNTING TRIPS

This made it all right for me, and another
hundred yards’ burst took me up to where
I was able to put a ball in a fatal spot, and
the grand old fellow sank down and fell
over on his side.

No sportsman can ever feel much keener
pleasure and self-satisfaction than when,
after a successful stalk and good shot, he
walks up to a grand elk lying dead in the
cool shade of the great evergreens, and
looks at the massive and yet finely moulded
form, and at the mighty antlers which are to
serve in the future as the trophy and proof
of his successful skill. Still-hunting the elk
on the mountains is as noble a kind of sport
as can well be imagined; there is nothing
more pleasant and enjoyable, and at the same _
time it demands that the hunter shall bring
into play many manly qualities. There have
been few days of my hunting life that were
so full of unalloyed happiness as were those
spent on the Bighorn range. From morning
till night I was on foot, in cool, bracing air,
now moving silently through the vast, melan-

ON THE PRAIRIE 193

choly pine forests, now treading the brink
of high, rocky precipices, always amid the
most grand and beautiful scenery; and al-
ways after as noble and lordly game as is to
be found in the Western world.

Since writing the above I killed an elk near
my ranch; probably the last of his race that
will ever be found in our neighborhood. It
was just before the fall round-up. An old
hunter, who was under some obligation to
me, told me that he had shot a cow elk and
had seen the tracks of one or two others not
more than twenty-five miles off, in a place
where the cattle rarely wandered. Such a
chance was not to be neglected; and, on the
first free day, one of my Elk-horn foremen,
Will Dow by name, and myself, took our
hunting horses and started off, accompanied ©
by the ranch wagon, in the direction of the
probable haunts of the doomed deer. To-
wards nightfall we struck a deep spring pool,
near by the remains of an old Indian encamp-
ment. It was at the head of a great basin,
several miles across, in which we believed

194 HUNTING TRIPS

the game to lie. The wagon was halted and
we pitched camp; there was plenty of dead
wood, and soon the venison steaks were broil-
ing over the coals raked from beneath the
crackling cottonwood logs, while in the nar-
row valley the ponies grazed almost within
the circle of the flickering fire-light. It was
in the cool and pleasant month of Septem-
ber; and long after going to bed we lay
awake under the blankets watching the stars
that on clear nights always shine with such
intense brightness over the lonely Western
plains.

We were up and off by the gray of the
morning. It was a beautiful hunting day;
the sundogs hung in the red dawn; the wind
hardly stirred over the crisp grass; and
though the sky was cloudless yet the weather
had that queer, smoky, hazy look that it is
most apt to take on during the time of: the
Indian summer. From a high spur of the
table-land we looked out far and wide over
a great stretch of broken country, the brown
of whose hills and valleys was varied every-

ON THE PRAIRIE 195

where by patches of dull red and vivid yel-
low, tokens that the trees were already put-
ting on the dress with which they greet the
mortal ripening of the year. The deep and
narrow but smooth ravines running up to-
wards the edges of the plateaus were heavily
wooded, the bright green tree-tops rising to
a height they rarely reach in the barren
plains-country; and the rocky sides of the
sheer gorges were clad with a thick growth
of dwarfed cedars, while here and there the
trailing Virginia creepers burned crimson
among their sombre masses.

We hunted stealthily up-wind, across the
line of the heavily timbered coulies. We
soon saw traces of our quarry; old tracks
at first, and then the fresh footprints of a
single elk—a bull, judging by the size—
which had come down to drink at a mirey
alkali pool, its feet slipping so as to leave
the marks of the false hoofs in the soft soil.
We hunted with painstaking and noiseless
care for many hours; at last as I led old Man-
itou up to look over the edge of a narrow

196 HUNTING TRIPS

ravine, there was a crash and movement in
the timber below me, and immediately after-
wards I caught a glimpse of a great bull elk
trotting up through the young trees as he
gallantly breasted the steep hill-side oppo-
site. When clear of the woods, and directly
across the valley from me, he stopped and
turned half round, throwing his head in the
air to gaze for a moment at the intruder.
My bullet struck too far back, but, never-
theless, made a deadly wound, and the elk
went over the crest of the hill at a wild,
plunging gallop. We followed the bloody
trail for a quarter of a mile, and found him
dead in a thicket. Though of large size, he
yet had but small antlers, with few points.

CHAPTER X

OLD EPHRAIM

UT few bears are found in the imme-
diate neighborhood of my ranch; and
though I have once or twice seen their tracks
in the Bad Lands, I have never had any ex-
perience with the animals themselves except
during the elk-hunting trip on the Bighorn
Mountains, described in the preceding chap-
ter.

The grizzly bear undoubtedly comes in the
category of dangerous game, and is, perhaps
the only animal in the United States that
can be fairly so placed, unless we count the
few jaguars found north of the Rio Grande.
But the danger of hunting the grizzly has
been greatly exaggerated, and the sport is
certainly very much safer than it was at
the beginning of this century. The first

197

198 HUNTING TRIPS

hunters who came into contact with this
great bear were men belonging to that hardy
and adventurous class of backwoodsmen
which had filled the wild country between
the Appalachian Mountains and the Missis-
sippi. These men carried but one weapon:
the long-barrelled, small-bored pea-rifle,
whose bullets ran seventy to the pound, the
amount of powder and lead being a little
less than that contained in the cartridge of
a thirty-two calibre Winchester. In the
Eastern States almost all the hunting was
done in the woodland ; the shots were mostly
obtained at short distance, and deer and
black bear were the largest game; moreover,
the pea-rifles were marvellously accurate for
close range, and their owners were famed
the world over for their skill as marksmen.
Thus these rifles had so far proved plenty
good enough for the work they had to do,
and indeed had done excellent service as
military weapons in the ferocious wars that
the men of the border carried on with their
Indian neighbors, and even in conflict with

ON THE PRAIRIE 199

more civilized foes, as at the battles of
King’s Mountain and New Orleans. But
when the restless frontiersmen pressed out
over the Western plains, they encountered in
the grizzly a beast of far greater bulk and
more savage temper than any of those found
in the Eastern woods, and their small-bore ri-
fles were utterly inadequate weapons with
which to cope with him. It is smail wonder
that he was considered by them to be almost
invulnerable, and extraordinarily tenacious
of life. He would be a most unpleasant an-
tagonist now to a man armed only with a
thirty-two calibre rifle, that carried but a sin-
gle shot and was loaded at the muzzle. <A
rifle, to be of use in this sport, should carry a
ball weighing from half an ounce to an
ounce. With the old pea-rifles the shot had
to be in the eye or heart; and accidents to
the hunter were very common. But the in-
troduction of heavy breech-loading repeaters
has greatly lessened the danger, even in the
very few and far-off places where the griz-
zlies are as ferocious as formerly. For now-

200 HUNTING TRIPS

adays these great bears are undoubtedly
much better aware of the death-dealing
power of men, and, as a consequence, much
less fierce, than was the case with their fore-
fathers, who so unhesitatingly attacked the
early Western travellers and explorers.
Constant contact with rifle-carrying hunt-
ers, for a period extending over many gen-
erations of bear-life, has taught the grizzly
by bitter experience that man is his un-
doubted overlord, as far as fighting goes;
and this knowledge has become an heredi-
tary characteristic. No grizzly will assail a
man now unprovoked, and one will almost
always rather run than fight; though if he
is wounded or thinks himself cornered he will
attack his foes with a headlong, reckless fury
that renders him one of the most dangerous
of wild beasts. The ferocity of all wild ani-
mals depends largely upon the amount of re-
sistance they are accustomed to meet with,
and the quantity of molestation to which they
are subjected.

The change in the grizzly’s character dur-

ON THE PRAIRIE sae

ing the last half century has been precisely
paralleled by the change in the characters of
his northern cousin, the polar bear, and of
the South African lion. When the Dutch
and Scandinavian sailors first penetrated the
Arctic seas, they were kept in constant dread
of the white bear, who regarded a man as_
simply an erect variety of seal, quite as
good eating as the common kind. The rec-
ords of these early explorers are filled with
examples of the ferocious and man-eating
propensities of the polar bears; but in the
accounts of most of the later Arctic expe-
ditions they are portrayed as having learned
wisdom, and being now most anxious to keep
out of the way of the hunters. A number of
my sporting friends have killed white bears,
and none of them were ever even charged.
And in South Africa the English sportsmen
and Dutch Boers have taught the lion to be a
very different creature from what it was
when the first white man reached that con-
tinent. If the Indian tiger had been a native
of the United States, it would now be one

202 HUNTING TRIPS

of the most shy of beasts. Of late years our
estimate of the grizzly’s ferocity has been
lowered ; and we no longer accept the tales of
uneducated hunters as being proper authority
by which to judge it. But we should make
a parallel reduction in the cases of many for-
eign animals and their describers. Take, for
example, that purely melodramatic beast, the
North African lion, as portrayed hy Jules
Gérard, who bombastically describes him-
self as “le tueur des lions.” Gérard’s ac-
counts are self-evidently in large part ficti-
tious, while if true they would prove less for
the bravery of the lion than for the phenom-
enal cowardice, incapacity, and bad marks-
manship of the Algerian Arabs. Doubtless
Gérard was a great hunter; but so is many
a Western plainsman, whose account of the
grizzlies he has killed would be wholly un-
trustworthy. Take for instance the follow-
ing from page 223 of “ La Chasse au Lion”:
“The inhabitants had assembled one day to
the number of two or three hundred with
the object of killing (the lion) or driving

ON THE PRAIRIE 203

it out of the country. The attack took place
at sunrise; at mid-day five hundred car-
tridges had been expended; the Arabs car-
ried off one of their number dead and six
wounded, and the lion remained master of
the field of battle.” Now if three hundred
men could fire five hundred shots at a lion
without hurting him, it merely shows that
they were wholly incapable of hurting any
thing, or else that M. Gérard was more ex-
pert with the long-bow than with the rifle.
Gérard’s whole book is filled with equally pre-
posterous nonsense; yet a great many people
seriously accept this same book as _ trust-
worthy authority for the manners and fero-
city of the North African lion. It would be
quite as sensible to accept M. Jules Verne’s
stories as being valuable contributions to
science. A good deal of the lion’s reputation
is built upon just such stuff.

How the prowess of the grizzly compares
with that of the lion or tiger would be hard
to say; I have never shot either of the lat-
ter myself, and my brother, who has killed

204 HUNTING TRIPS

tigers in India, has never had a chance at a
grizzly. Any one of the big bears we killed
on the mountains would, I should think, have
been able to make short work of either a
lion or a tiger; for the grizzly is greatly su-
perior in bulk and muscular power to either
of the great cats, and its teeth are as large
as theirs, while its claws, though blunter, are
much longer; nevertheless, I believe that a
lion or a tiger would be fully as dangerous
to a hunter or other human being, on account
of the superior speed of its charge, the light-
ning-like rapidity of its movements, and its
apparently sharper senses. Still, after all is
said, the man should have a thoroughly
trust-worthy weapon and a fairly cool head,
who would follow into his own haunts and
slay grim Old Ephraim.

A grizzly will only fight if wounded or
cornered, or, at least, if he thinks himself
cornered. If a man by accident stumbies on
to one close up, he is almost certain to be
attacked really more from fear than from
any other motive; exactly the same reason

ON THE PRAIRIE 205

that makes a rattlesnake strike at a passer-by.
I have personally known of but one instance
of a grizzly turning on a hunter before be-
ing wounded. This happened to a friend of
mine, a Californian ranchman, who, with two
or three of his men, was following a bear
that had carried off one of his sheep. They
got the bear into a cleft in the mountain
from which there was no escape, and he sud-
denly charged back through the line of his
pursuers, struck down one of the horsemen,
seized the arm of the man in his jaws and
broke it as if it had been a pipe-stem, and
was only killed after a most lively fight, in
which, by repeated charges, he at one time
drove every one of hisassailants off the field.

But two instances have come to my per-
sonal knowledge where a man has been killed
by a grizzly. One was that of a hunter at
the foot of the Bighorn Mountains who had
chased a large bear and finally wounded him.
The animal turned at once and came
straight at the man, whose second shot
missed. The bear then closed and passed

206 HUNTING TRIPS

on, after striking only a single blow; yet
that one blow, given with all the power of
its thick, immensely muscular forearm,
armed with nails as strong as so many hooked
steel spikes, tore out the man’s collar-bone
and snapped through three or four ribs. He
never recovered from the shock, and died
that night.

The other instance occurred to a neighbor
of mine—who has a small ranch on the Lit-
tle Missouri—two or three years ago. He
was out on a mining trip, and was pros-
pecting with two other men near the head-
water of the Little Missouri, in the Black
Hills country. They were walking down
along the river, and came to a point of land,
thrust out into it, which was densely cov-
ered with brush and fallen timber. Two of
the party walked round by the edge of the
stream ; but the third, a German, and a very
powerful fellow, followed a well-beaten game
trail, leading through the bushy point.
When they were some forty yards apart the
two men heard an agonized shout from the

ON THE PRAIRIE 207

German, and at the same time the loud
coughing growl, or roar, of a bear. They
turned just in time to see their companion
struck a terrible blow on the head by a griz-
zly, which must have been roused from its
lair by his almost stepping on it; so close
was it that he had no time to fire his rifle,
but merely held it up over his head as a
guard. Of course it was struck down, the
claws of the great brute at the same time
shattering his skull like an egg-shell. Yet
the man staggered on some ten feet before he
fell; but when he did he never spoke or
moved again. The two others killed the bear
after a short, brisk struggle, as he was in the
midst of a most determined charge.

In 1872, near Fort Wingate, New Mexico,
two soldiers of a cavalry regiment came to
their death at the claws of a grizzly bear.
The army surgeon who attended them told
me the particulars, as far as they were
known. The men were mail carriers, and
one day did not come in at the appointed
time. Next day, a relief party was sent out

208 HUNTING TRIPS

to look for them, and after some search
found the bodies of both, as well as that
of one of the horses. One of the men still
showed signs of life; he came to his senses
before dying, and told the story. They had
seen a grizzly and pursued it on horseback,
with their Spencer rifles. On coming close,
one had fired into its side, when it turned
with marvellous quickness for so large and
unwieldy an animal, and struck down the
horse, at the same time inflicting a ghastly
wound on the rider. The other man dis-
mounted and came up to the rescue of his
companion. ‘The bear then left the latter
and attacked the other. Although hit by
the bullet, it charged home and threw the
man down, and then lay on him and deliber-
ately bit him to death, while his groans and
cries were frightful to hear. Afterward it
walked off into the bushes without again
offering to molest the already mortally
wounded victim of its first assault.

At certain times the grizzly works a good
deal of havoc among the herds of the stock-

ON THE PRAIRIE 209

men. A friend of mine, a ranchman in
Montana, told me that one fall bears became
very plenty around his ranches, and caused
him severe loss, killing with ease even full-
grown beef-steers. But one of them once
found his intended quarry too much for him.
My friend had a stocky, rather vicious range
stallion, which had been grazing one day near
a small thicket of bushes, and, towards eve-
ning, came galloping in with three or four
gashes in his haunch, that looked as if they
had been cut with a dull axe. The cowboys
knew at once that he had been assailed by
a bear, and rode off to the thicket near which
he had been feeding. Sure enough a bear,
evidently in a very bad temper, sallied out
as soon as the thicket was surrounded, and,
after a spirited fight and a succession of
charges, was killed. On examination, it was
found that his under jaw was broken, and
part of his face smashed in, evidently by the
stallion’s hoofs. The horse had been feeding
when the bear leaped out at him but failed
to kill at the first stroke; then the horse

210 HUNTING TRIPS

lashed out behind, and not only freed him-
self, but also severely damaged his opponent.

Doubtless, the grizzly could be hunted to
advantage with dogs, which would not, of
course, be expected to seize him, but simply
to find and bay him, and distract his atten-
tion by barking and nipping. Occasionally
a bear can be caught in the open and killed
with the aid of horses. But nine times out
of ten the only way to get one is to put on
moccasins and still-hunt it in its own haunts,
shooting it at close quarters. Either its
tracks should be followed until the bed
wherein it lies during the day is found, or
a given locality in which it is known to ex-
ist should be carefully beaten through, or
else a bait should be left out and a watch kept
on it to catch the bear when he has come to
visit it.

For some days after our arrival on the
Bighorn range we did not come across any
grizzly.

Although it was still early in September,

ON THE PRAIRIE 211

the weather was cool and pleasant, the nights
being frosty; and every two or three days
there was a flurry of light snow, which ren-
dered the labor of tracking much more easy.
Indeed, throughout our stay on the moun-
tains, the peaks were snow-capped almost all
the time. Our fare was excellent, consisting
of elk venison, mountain grouse, and small
trout ; the last caught in one of the beautiful
little lakes that lay almost up by timber line.
To us, who had for weeks been accustomed
‘to make small fires from dried brush, or from
sage-brush roots, which we dug out of the
ground, it was a treat to sit at night before
the roaring and crackling pine logs; as the
old teamster quaintly put it, we had at last
come to a land “where the wood grew on
trees.” There were plenty of black-tail deer in
the woods, and we came across a number of
bands of cow and calf elk, or of young bulls;
but after several days’ hunting, we were still
without any head worth taking home, and
had seen no sign of grizzly, which was the
game we were especially anxious to kill; for

212 HUNTING TRIPS

neither Merrifield nor I had ever seen a wild
bear alive.

Sometimes we hunted in company ; some-
times each of us went out alone; the team-
ster, of course, remaining in to guard camp
and cook. One day we had separated; I
reached camp early in the afternoon, and
waited a couple of hours before Merrifield
put in an appearance.

At last I heard a shout—the familiar long-
drawn Eikoh-h-h of the cattle-men,—and he
came in sight galloping at speed down an
open glade, and waving his hat, evidently
having had good luck; and when he reined
in his small, wiry, cow-pony, we saw that
he had packed behind his saddle the fine,
glossy pelt of a black bear. Better still, he
announced that he had been off about ten
miles to a perfect tangle of ravines and val-_
leys where bear sign was very thick; and net
of black bear either but of grizzly. The
black bear (the only one we got on the
mountains) he had run across by accident,
while riding up a valley in which there was

ON THE PRAIRIE 213

a patch of dead timber grown up with berry
bushes. He noticed a black object which he
first took to be a stump; for during the past
few days we had each of us made one or two
clever stalks up to charred logs which our
imagination converted into bears. On com-
ing near, however, the object suddenly took
to its heels; he followed over frightful
ground at the pony’s best pace, until it
stumbled and fell down. By this time he
was close on the bear, which had just
reached the edge of the wood. Picking him-
self up, he rushed after it, hearing it growl-
ing ahead of him; after running some fifty
yards the sound stopped, and he stood still
listening. He saw and heard nothing, until
he happened to cast his eyes upwards, and
there was the bear, almost overhead, and
about twenty-five feet up a tree; and in as
many seconds afterwards it came down to
the ground with a bounce, stone dead. It
was a young bear, in its second year, and
had probably never before seen a man, which
accounted for the ease with which it was

214 HUNTING TRIPS

treed and taken. One minor result of the
encounter was to convince Merrifield—the
list of whose faults did not include lack of
self-confidence—that he could run down any
bear; in consequence of which idea we on
more than one subsequent occasion went
through a good deal of violent exertion.

Merrifield’s tale made me decide to shift
camp at once, and go over to the spot where
the bear-tracks were so plenty. Next morn-
ing we were off, and by noon pitched camp
by a clear brook, in a valley with steep,
wooded sides, but with good feed for the
horses in the open bottom. We rigged the
canvas wagon sheet into a small tent, shel-
tered by the trees from the wind, and piled
great pine logs near by where we wished to
place the fire; for a night camp in the sharp
fall weather is cold and dreary unless there
is a roaring blaze of flame in front of the
tent.

That afternoon we again went out, and I
shot a fine bull elk. I came home alone to-
ward nightfall, walking through a reach of

ON THE PRAIRIE 215

burnt forest, where there was nothing but
charred tree-trunks and black mould. When
nearly through it I came across the huge,
half-human footprints of a great grizzly,
which must have passed by within a few
minutes. It gave me rather an eerie feeling
in the silent, lonely woods, to see for the first
time the unmistakable proofs that I was in
the home of the mighty lord of the wilder-
ness. I followed the tracks in the fading
twilight until it became too dark to see them
any longer, and then shouldered my rifie and
walked back to camp.

That evening we almost had a visit from
one of the animals we were after. Several
times we had heard at night the musical
calling of the bull elk—a sound to which no
writer has as yet done justice. This partic-
ular night, when we were in bed and the fire
was smouldering, we were roused by a ruder
noise—a kind of grunting or roaring whine,
answered by the frightened snorts of the
ponies. It was a bear which had evidently
not seen the fire, as it came from behind the

216 HUNTING TRIPS

bank, and had probably been attracted by
the smell of the horses. After it made out
what we were it stayed round a short while,
again uttered its peculiar roaring grunt, and
went off; we had seized our rifles and had
run out into the woods, but in the darkness
could see nothing ; indeed it was rather lucky
we did not stumble across the bear, as he
could have made short work of us when we
were at such a disadvantage.

Next day we went off on a long tramp
through the woods and along the sides of
the canyons. There were plenty of berry
bushes growing in clusters; and all around
these there were fresh tracks of bear. But
the grizzly is also a flesh-eater, and has a
great liking for carrion. On visiting the
place where Merrifield had killed the black
bear, we found that the grizzlies had been
there before us, and had utterly devoured
the carcass, with cannibal relish. Hardly a
scrap was left, and we turned our steps to-
ward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It
Was quite late in the afternoon when we

ON THE PRAIRIE 207

reached the place. A grizzly had evidently
been at the carcass during the preceding
night, for his great footprints were in the
ground all around it, and the carcass itself
was gnawed and torn, and partially covered
with earth and leaves—for the grizzly has a
curious habit of burying all of his prey that
he does not at the moment need. A great
many ravens had been feeding on the body,
and they wheeled about over the tree tops
above us, uttering their barking croaks.
The forest was composed mainly of what
are called ridge-pole pines, which grow close
together, and do not branch out until the
stems are thirty or forty feet from the
ground. Beneath these trees we walked
over a carpet of pine needles, upon which our
moccasined feet made no sound. The woods
seemed vast and lonely, and their silence
was broken now and then by the strange
noises always to be heard in the great for-
ests, and which seem to mark the sad and
everlasting unrest of the wilderness. We
climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree

218 HUNTING TRIPS

which had toppled over until its upper
branches struck in the limb crotch of another,
that thus supported it at an angle half-way
in its fall. When above the ground far
enough to prevent the bear’s smelling us,
we Sat still to wait for his approach; until,
in the gathering gloom, we could no longer
see the sights of our rifles, and could but
dimly make out the carcass of the great elk.
It was useless to wait longer; and we clam-
bered down and stole out to the edge of the
woods. The forest here covered one side
of a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose
other side was bare except of rock and sage-
brush. Once out from under the trees there
was still plenty of light, although the sun
had set, and we crossed over some fifty yards .
to the opposite hill-side, and crouched down
under a bush to see if perchance some ani-
mal might not also leave the cover. To our”
right the ravine sloped downward toward the
valley of the Bighorn River, and far on its
other side we could catch a glimpse of the
great main chain of the Rockies, their

ON THE PRAIRIE 219

snow peaks glinting crimson in the light of
the set sun. Again we waited quietly in the
growing dusk until the pine trees in our front
blended into one dark, frowning mass. We
saw nothing; but the wild creatures of the
forest had begun to stir abroad. The owls
hooted dismally from the tops of the tall
trees, and two or three times a harsh wail-
ing cry, probably the voice of some lynx or
wolverine, arose from the depths of the
woods. At last, as we were rising to leave,
we heard the sound of the breaking of a
dead stick, from the spot where we knew the
carcass lay. It was a sharp, sudden noise,
perfectly distinct from the natural creaking
and snapping of the branches; just such a
sound as would be made by the tread of some
heavy creature. “ Old Ephraim” had come
back to the carcass. A minute afterward,
listening with strained ears, we heard him
brush by some dry twigs. It was entirely
too dark to go in after him; but we made up
our minds that on the morrow he should be
ours.

220 HUNTING TRIPS

Early next morning we were over at the
elk carcass, and, as we expected, found that
the bear had eaten his fill at it during the
night. His tracks showed him to be an im-
mense fellow, and were so fresh that we
doubted if he had left long before we ar-
rived; and we made up our minds to follow
him up and try to find his lair. The
bears that lived on these mountains had ev-
idently been little disturbed; indeed, the In-
dians and most of the white hunters are
rather chary of meddling with “Old
Ephraim,” as the mountain men style the
grizzly, unless they get him at a disadvan-
tage; for the sport is fraught with some
danger and but small profit. The bears thus
seemed to have very little fear of harm, and
we thought it likely that the bed of the one
who had fed on the elk would not be far
away.

My companion was a skilful tracker, and
we took up the trail at once. For some dis-
tance it led over the soft, yielding carpet of
moss and pine needles, and the footprints

ON THE PRAIRIE 221

were quite easily made out, although we
could follow them but slowly; for we had,
of course, to keep a sharp look-out ahead
and around us as we walked noiselessly on
in the sombre half-light always prevailing
under the great pine trees, through whose
thickly interlacing branches stray but few
beams of light, no matter how bright the sun
may be outside. We made no sound our-
selves, and every little sudden noise sent a
thrill through me as I peered about with each
sense on the alert. Two or three of the
ravens that we had scared from the carcass
flew overhead, croaking hoarsely; and the
pine tops moaned and sighed in the slight
breeze—for pine trees seem to be ever in
motion, no matter how light the wind.
After going a few hundred yards the tracks
turned off on a well-beaten path made by the
elk; the woods were in many places cut up
by these game trails, which had often be-
come as distinct as ordinary foot-paths.
The beast’s footprints were perfectly plain
in the dust, and he had lumbered along up

222 HUNTING TRIPS

the path until near the middle of the hill-
side, where the ground broke away and there
were hollows and boulders. Here there had
been a windfall, and the dead trees lay among
the living, piled across one another in all di-
rections; while between and around them
sprouted up a thick growth of young spruces
and other evergreens. The trail turned off
into the tangled thicket, within which it was
almost certain we would find our quarry.
We could still follow the tracks, by the slight
scrapes of the claws on the bark, or by the
bent and broken twigs; and we advanced
with noiseless caution, slowly climbing over
the dead tree trunks and upturned stumps,
and not letting a branch rustle or catch on
our clothes. When in the middle of the
thicket we crossed what was almost a breast-
work of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was
leading, passed by the upright stem of a
great pine. As soon as he was by it he
sank suddenly on one knee, turning half
round, his face fairly aflame with excitement ;
and as I strode past him, with my rifle at

ON THE PRAIRIE 223

the ready, there, not ten steps off, was the
great bear, slowly rising from his bed among
the young spruces. He had heard us, but
apparently hardly knew exactly where or
what we were, for he reared up on his
haunches sideways to us. Then he saw us
and dropped down again on all fours, the
shagey hair on his neck and shoulders seem-
ing to bristle as he turned towards us. As he
sank down on his forefeet I had raised the ri-
fle; his head was bent slightly down, and
when I saw the top of the white bead fairly
between his small, glittering, evil eyes, I
pulled trigger. Half-rising up, the huge
beast fell over on his side in the death throes,
the ball having gone into his brain, striking
-as fairly between the eyes as if the distance
had been measured by a carpenter’s rule.
The whole thing was over in twenty sec-
onds from the time I caught sight of the
game; indeed, it was over so quickly that the
grizzly did not have time to show fight at all
or come a step toward us. It was the first
I had ever seen, and I felt not a little proud,

224 HUNTING TRIPS

as I stood over the great brindled bulk, which
lay stretched out at length in the cool shade
of the evergreens. He was a monstrous fel-
low, much larger than any I have seen since,
whether alive or brought in dead by the
hunters. As near as we could estimate (for
of course we had nothing with which to
weigh more than very small portions) he
must have weighed about twelve hundred
pounds, and though this is not as large as
some of his kind are said to grow in Cali-
fornia, it is yet a very unusual size for a
bear. He was a good deal heavier than any
of our horses; and it was with the greatest
difficulty that we were able to skin him. He
must have been very old, his teeth and claws
being all worn down and blunted ; but never-
theless he had been living in plenty, for he
was as fat as a prize hog, the layers on his
back being a finger’s length in thickness.
He was still in the summer coat, his hair be-
ing short, and in color a curious brindled
brown, somewhat like that of certain bull-
dogs; while all the bears we shot afterward

ON THE PRAIRIE 225

had the long thick winter fur, cinnamon or
yellowish brown. By the way, the name of
this bear has reference to its character and
not to its color, and should, I suppose, be
properly spelt grisly—in the sense of horrible,
exactly as we speak of a “grisly spectre ”
—and not grizzly ; but perhaps the latter way
of spelling it is too well established to be
now changed.

In killing dangerous game steadiness is
more needed than good shooting. No game
is dangerous unless a man is close up, for
nowadays hardly any wild beast will charge
from a distance of a hundred yards, but
will rather try to run off; and if a man is
close it is easy enough for him to shoot
straight if he does not lose his head. A
bear’s brain is about the size of a pint bot-
tle; and any one can hit a pint bottle off-
hand at thirty or forty feet. I have had two
shots at bears at close quarters, and each time
I fired into the brain, the bullet in one case
striking fairly between the eyes, as told
above, and in the other going in between the

226 HUNTING TRIPS

eye and ear. A novice at this kind of sport
will find it best and safest to keep in mind
the old Norse viking’s advice in reference
to a long sword: “If you go in close
enough your sword will be long enough.” If
a poor shot goes in close enough he will find
that he shoots straight enough.

I was very proud over my first bear; but
Merrifield’s chief feeling seemed to be dis-
appointment that the animal had not had
time to show fight. He was rather a reck-
less fellow, and very confident in his own
skill with the rifle; and he really did not
seem to have any more fear of the grizzlies
than if they had been so many jack-rabbits.
I did not at all share his feelings, having a
hearty respect for my foes’ prowess, and in
following and attacking them always took all
possible care to get the chances on my side.
Merrifield was sincerely sorry that we never
had to stand a regular charge; while on
this trip we killed five grizzlies with seven
bullets, and except in the case of the she and
cub, spoken of further on, each was shot

ON THE PRAIRIE 227

about as quickly as it got sight of us. The
last one we got was an old male, which was
feeding on an elk carcass. We crept up to
within about sixty feet, and as Merrifield had
not yet killed a grizzly purely to his*own
gun, and I had killed three, I told him to take
the shot. He at once whispered gleefully:
“T’ll break his leg, and we'll see what he'll
do!” Having no ambition to be a partici-
pator in the antics of a three-legged bear, I
hastily interposed a most emphatic veto ; and
with a rather injured air he fired, the bul-
let going through the neck just back of the
head. ‘The bear fell to the shot, and could
not get up from the ground, dying in a few
minutes; but first he seized his left wrist in
his teeth and bit clean through it, completely
separating the bones of the paw and arm.
Although a smaller bear than the big one
I first shot, he would probably have proved
a much more ugly foe, for he was less un-
wieldy, and had much longer and sharper
teeth and claws. I think that if my com-
panion had merely broken the beast’s leg

228 HUNTING TRIPS

he would have had his curiosity as to its
probable conduct more than gratified.

We tried eating the grizzly’s flesh but it
was not good, being coarse and not well fla-
vored; and besides, we could not get over
the feeling that it had belonged to a carrion
feeder. The flesh of the little black bear, on
the other hand, was excellent; it tasted like
that of a young pig. Doubtless, if a young
grizzly, which had fed merely upon fruits,
berries, and acorns, was killed, its flesh would
prove good eating; but even then, it would
probably not be equal to a black bear.

A day or two after the death of the big
bear, we went out one afternoon on horse-
back, intending merely to ride down to see
a great canyon lying some six miles west of
our camp; indeed, we went more to look at
the scenery than for any other reason,
though, of course, neither of us ever stirred
out of camp without his rifle. We rode down
the valley in which we had camped, through
alternate pine groves and open glades, until
we reached the canyon, and then skirted its

ON THE PRAIRIE 229

brink for a mile or so. It was a great chasm,
many miles in length, as if the table-land
had been rent asunder by some terrible and
unknown force; its sides were sheer walls
of rock, rising three or four hundred feet
straight up in the air, and worn by the
weather till they looked like the towers and
battlements of some vast fortress. Between
them at the bottom was a space, in some
places nearly a quarter of a mile wide, in
others very narrow, through whose middle
foamed a deep, rapid torrent of which the
sources lay far back among the snow-topped
mountains around Cloud Peak. In this val-
ley, dark-green, sombre pines stood in
groups, stiff and erect; and here and there
‘among them were groves of poplar and cot-
-tonwood, with slender branches and trem-

bling leaves, their bright green already chan-
ging to yellow in the sharp fall weather. We

went down to where the mouth of the can-
yon opened out, and rode our horses to the
end of a great jutting promontory of rock,
thrust out into the plain; and in the cold,

230 HUNTING TRIPS

clear air we looked far over the broad val-
ley of the Bighorn as it lay at our very feet,
walled in on the other side by the distant
chain of the Rocky Mountains.

Turning our horses, we rode back along
the edge of another canyon-like valley, with
a brook flowing down its centre, and its rocky
sides covered with an uninterrupted pine for-
est—the place of all others in whose inac-
cessible wildness and ruggedness a _ bear
would find a safe retreat. After some time
we came to where other valleys, with steep,
grass-grown sides, covered with sage-brush,
branched out from it, and we followed one of
these out. There was plenty of elk sign
about, and we saw several black-tail deer.
These last were very common on the moun-
tains, but we had not hunted them at all, as
we were in no need of meat. But this af-—
ternoon we came across a buck with re-
markably fine antlers, and accordingly I shot
it, and we stopped to cut off and skin out the
horns, throwing the reins over the heads
of the horses and leaving them to graze by

ON THE PRAIRIE 231

themselves. The body lay near the crest of
one side of a deep valley, or ravine, which
headed up on the plateau a mile to our left.
Except for scattered trees and bushes the
| valley was bare; but there was heavy tim-
ber along the crests of the hills on its oppo-
site side. It took some time to fix the head
properly, and we were just ending when
Merrifield sprang to his feet and exclaimed:
“Look at the bears!” pointing down into
the valley below us. Sure enough there
were two bears (which afterwards proved to
be an old she and a nearly full-grown cub)
travelling up the bottom of the valley, much
too far off for us to shoot. Grasping our
rifles and throwing off our hats we started
| off as hard as we could run, diagonally down
the hill-side, so as to cut them off. It was
some little time before they saw us, when
they made off at a lumbering gallop up the
valley. It would seem impossible to run into
two grizzlies in the open, but they were
going up hill and we down, and moreover
the old one kept stopping. The cub would

232 HUNTING TRIPS

forge ahead and could probably have escaped
us, but the mother now and then stopped to
sit up on her haunches and look round at
us, when the cub would run back to her.
The upshot was that we got ahead of them,
when they turned and went straight up one
hill-side as we ran straight down the other
behind them. By this time I was pretty
nearly done out, for running along the steep
ground through the sage-brush was most ex-
hausting work; and Merrifield kept gaining
on me and was well in front. Just as he dis-
appeared over a bank, almost at the bottom
of the valley, I tripped over a bush and fell
full-length. When I got up I knew I could
never make up the ground I had lost, and
besides, could hardly run any longer; Mer-
rifield was out of sight below, and the bears
were laboring up the steep hill-side directly
opposite and about three hundred yards off,
so I sat down and began to shoot over Mer-
rifield’s head, aiming at the big bear. She
was going very steadily and in a straight line,
and each bullet sent up a puff of dust where

ON THE PRAIRIE 233

it struck the dry soil, so that I could keep
correcting my aim; and the fourth ball
crashed into the old bear’s flank. She lurched
heavily forward, but recovered herself and
reached the timber, while Merrifield, who had
put on a spurt, was not far behind.

I toiled up the hill at a sort of trot, fairly
gasping and sobbing for breath; but before
I got to the top I heard a couple of shots
and a shout. The old bear had turned as
soon as she was in the timber, and came to-
wards Merrifield, but he gave her the death
wound by firing into her chest, and then
shot at the young one, knocking it over.
When I came up he was just walking to-
wards the latter to finish it with the re-
volver, but it suddenly jumped up as lively
as ever and made off at a great pace—for it ©
was nearly full-grown. It was impossible to .
fire where the tree trunks were so thick, |
but there was a small opening across which
it would have to pass, and collecting all my
energies I made a last run, got into posi-
tion, and covered the opening with my rifle.

234 HUNTING TRIPS

The instant the bear appeared I fired, and
it turned a dozen somersaults down-hill, roll-
ing over and over; the ball had struck it
near the tail and had ranged forward through
the hollow of the body. Each of us had thus
given the fatal wound to the bear into which
the other had fired the first bullet. The
run, though short, had been very sharp, and
over such awful country that we were com-
pletely fagged out, and could hardly speak
for lack of breath. The sun had already set,
and it was too late to skin the animals; so
we merely dressed them, caught the ponies—
with some trouble, for they were frightened
at the smell of the bear’s blood on our hands,
—and rode home through the darkening
woods. Next day we brought the teamster
and two of the steadiest pack-horses to the
carcasses, and took the skins into camp.

The feed for the horses was excellent in
the valley in which we were camped, and
the rest after their long journey across the
plains did them good. They had picked up
wonderfully in condition during our stay on

ON THE PRAIRIE 235

the mountains; but they were apt to wan-
der very far during the night, for there were
so many bears and other wild beasts around
that they kept getting frightened and run-
ning off. We were very loath to leave our
hunting grounds, but time was pressing, and
we had already many more trophies than we
could carry; so one cool morning when the
branches of the evergreens were laden with
the feathery snow that had fallen overnight,
we struck camp and started out of the moun-
tains, each of us taking his own bedding
behind his saddle, while the pack-ponies were
loaded down with bearskins, elk and deer
antlers, and the hides and furs of other game.
In single file we moved through the woods,
and across the canyons to the edge of the
great table-land, and then slowly down the
steep slope to its foot, where we found our
canvas-topped wagon; and next day saw us
setting out on our long journey homewards,
across the three hundred weary miles of tree-
less and barren-looking plains country.

Last spring, since the above was written,

236 HUNTING TRIPS

a bear killed a man not very far from my
ranch. It was at the time of the floods. Two
hunters came down the river, by our ranch,
on a raft, stopping to take dinner. A score
or so of miles below, as we afterwards heard
from the survivor, they landed, and found a
bear in a small patch of brushwood. After
waiting in vain for it to come out, one of
the men rashly attempted to enter the thicket,
and was instantly struck down by the beast,
before he could so much as fire his rifle. It
broke in his skull with a blow of its great
paw, and then seized his arm in its jaws,
biting through and through in three places,
but leaving the body and retreating into the
bushes as soon as the unfortunate man’s com-
panion approached. We did not hear of the
accident until too late to go after the bear,
as we were just about starting to join the
spring round-up.

ADDENDUM

IN speaking of the trust antelope place
in their eye-sight as a guard against danger,
I do not mean to imply that their noses are
not also very acute; it is as important with
them as with all other game to prevent their
getting the hunter’s wind. So with deer;
while their eyes are not as sharp as those of
big-horn and prong-horn, they are yet quite
keen enough to make it necessary for the
still-hunter to take every precaution to avoid
being seen.

Although with us antelope display the most
rooted objection to entering broken or
wooded ground, yet a friend of mine, whose
experience in the hunting-field is many
times as great as my own, tells me that in
certain parts of the country they seem by
preference to go among the steepest and
roughest places (of course, in so doing, be-

237

238 ADDENDUM

ing obliged to make vertical as well as hori-
zontal leaps), and even penetrate into thick
woods. Indeed, no other species seems to
show such peculiar ‘“ freakiness” of char-
acter, both individually and locally.

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12°, $1.50

‘One of the most delightfully jolly, entertaining, and fasci-
nating works that has ever come from Grant Allen’s pen.’’—
N.Y. World.

** A quaint and sparkling story—bright and entertaining from
beginning to end.”’—Chicago Times-Herald.

Hilda Wade

A Woman with Tenacity of Purpose. By
GRANT ALLEN. With 98 illustrations by
Gordon Browne.

12°, $1.50

“*Mr. Allen’s text, as in all his writings, is singularly pictur-
esque and captivating. There are no commonplaces and although
the outcome is perfectly evident early in the story, the reader will
find his attention chained. . . . It is one of the best of the
summer books, and as an artistic bit of light reading ranks high.
It is a pity that such a vivid imagination and high-bred style of
discourse are no longer in the land of the living to entertain us
with further stories of adventure.’’—Boston Times.

The Angel of Clay

By WILLIAM ORDWAY PARTRIDGE, author of
“The Song Life of a Sculptor,” etc.
With illustrations by A. B. Wenzell.

12°, $1.25

‘** A story of the studio order, free from the grosser elements
which frequently mar such novels, and stronger in situations,
thought, and action than aremost. The central figure is that of
the true man and artist, and this character is splendidly por-
trayed. The style and story both invite perusal.—Portland
Transcript.

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

New York and London

Works on the Civil War

The Story of the Civil War. A Concise Account
of the War in the United States of America between
1861 and 1865. By JOHN CODMAN RopEs, Member
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, The Mili-
tary Historical Society of Massachusetts, Fellow of
the Royal Historical Society. Author of ‘The
Army Under Pope,” ‘‘ The First Napoleon,” ‘‘ The
Campaign of Waterloo,” etc. To be complete in
four parts, with comprehensive maps and battle plans.
Each part will be complete in itself, and will be sold
separately.

Part I. Narrative of Events to the Opening of the

Campaign of 1862. With5 maps. 8vo . $1 50
Part II. The Campaigns of 1862, With 13 maps.
8vo . P ‘ 4 ‘ oY) ree

Slavery and Four Years of War. A Political
History of Slavery in the United States, together
with a narrative of the Campaigns and Battles of the
Civil War in which the author took part. By JOSEPH
WARREN KEIFER, Brevet Major-General of Volun-
teers, ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives,
U.S.A., and Major-General of Volunteers, Spanish
War.

Two vols., illustrated. 8°, 336, 340 pages, $6 00

Ulysses S. Grant, and the Period of National
Preservation and Reconstruction. 1822-
1885. By WILLIAM CoNnANT CHURCH, late Lieut.-
Colonel, U.S.A., author of ‘‘ Life of John Ericsson.”
No. 21 in the ‘‘ Heroes of the Nations Series.” Fully
illustrated Large 12°, cloth, sil 50; half leather,

gilt top ; ‘ . . $I 75

Robert E. Lee, and the Southern Confed-
eracy. 1807-1870. By Prof. HENRY ALEX-
ANDER WHITE, of Washington and Lee University.
No. 22 in the ‘‘Heroes of the Nations Series.”
Fully illustrated. Large 12°, cloth, $1 50; half
leather, gilt top . ° : ° : : ‘$1 75

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

New York and London

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