Outdoor pastimes of an American hunterRoosevelt, Theodore
General
Outdoor pastimes of an American hunter
Roosevelt, Theodore
Hunting -- United States; Hunting -- West (U.S.)
We had plenty of fresh meat—prairie fowl and young sage fowl at first,
and antelope venison afterward. We camped by little pools, generally
getting fair water; and from the camps where there was plenty of wood we
took enough to build the fires at those where there was none. The nights
were frosty, and the days cool and pleasant, and from sunrise to sunset
we were off riding or walking among the low hills and over the uplands,
so that we slept well and ate well, and felt the beat of hardy life in
our veins.
Much of the time we were on a high divide between two creek systems,
from which we could see the great landmarks of all the regions
roundabout, Sentinel Butte, Square Butte and Middle Butte, far to the
north and east of us. Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more
beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge
hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one
and the faint afterglow of the red sunset filled the west. The endless
waves of rolling prairie, sweeping, vast and dim, to the feet of the
great hills, grew purple as the evening darkened, and the buttes loomed
into vague, mysterious beauty as their sharp outlines softened in the
twilight.
Even when we got out of reach of the sheep men we never found antelope
very plentiful, and they were shy, and the country was flat, so that the
stalking was extremely difficult; yet I had pretty good sport. The first
animal I killed was a doe, shot for meat, because I had twice failed to
get bucks at which I emptied my magazine at long range, and we were all
feeling hungry for venison. After that I killed nothing but bucks. Of
the five antelope killed, one I got by a headlong gallop to cut off his
line of flight. As sometimes happens with this queer, erratic animal,
when the buck saw that I was trying to cut off his flight he simply
raced ahead just as hard as he knew how, and, as my pony was not fast,
he got to the little pass for which he was headed 200 yards ahead of me.
I then jumped off, and his curiosity made him commit the fatal mistake
of halting for a moment to look round at me. He was standing end on, and
offered a very small mark at 200 yards; but I made a good line shot,
and, though I held a trifle too high, I hit him in the head, and down he
came. Another buck I shot from under the wagon early one morning as he
was passing just beyond the picketed horses. I have several times shot
antelope which unexpectedly came into camp in this fashion. The other
three I got after much manœuvring and long, tedious stalks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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