Now and then prongbuck would appear, singly or in bands; and their sharp bark of alarm or curiosity would come to me through the still, hot air over great distances, as they stood with head erect looking at me, the white patches on their rumps shining in the sun, and the bands and markings on their heads and necks showing as if they were in livery. Scan the country as carefully as I would, they were far more apt to see me than I was them, and once they had seen me, it was normally hopeless to expect to get them. But their strange freakishness of nature frequently offsets the keenness of their senses. At least half of the prongbucks which I shot were obtained, not by stalking, but by coming across them purely through their own fault. Though the prairie seemed level, there was really a constant series of undulations, shallow and of varying width. Now and then as I topped some slight rise I would catch a glimpse of a little band of pronghorns feeding, and would slip off my horse before they could see me. A hasty determination as to where the best chance of approaching them lay would be followed by a half-hour’s laborious crawl, a good part of the time flat on my face. They might discover me when I was still too far for a shot; or by taking advantage of every little inequality I might get within long range before they got a glimpse of me, and then in a reasonable proportion of cases I would bag my buck. At other times the buck would come to me. Perhaps one would suddenly appear over a divide himself, and his curiosity would cause him to stand motionless long enough to give me a shot; while on other occasions I have known one which was out of range to linger around, shifting his position as I shifted mine, until by some sudden gallop or twist I was able to get close enough to empty my magazine at him.