COURSING AND STILL-HUNTING.
Oscar watched the fawn as long as it remained in sight; and was glad to
see that the injuries it had inflicted upon itself did not in the least
interfere with its running.
When it disappeared from his view, he mounted his horse and turned
about, to find the lieutenant sitting motionless in his saddle and
looking at him with every expression of astonishment.
“What did you do that for?” he asked, as Oscar came up. “That wasn’t a
very bright trick.”
“I couldn’t help it,” was the reply. “He cried so, and seemed to be in
such misery.”
“Well, you beat anybody I ever heard of!” exclaimed the young officer,
who could scarcely believe his ears. “You come out here on purpose to
hunt game, and when you secure as fine a specimen as one can find in a
year’s shooting, you must up and let it go because it _cries_!”
The lieutenant shouted out the last word at the top of his voice, and
clapped his hands, and waved himself back and forth in the saddle, and
laughed until Oscar was obliged to laugh too.
“That’s the way they all do,” continued the officer, as soon as he could
speak. “You’ll have to get used to it.”
“I can’t, and I’ll not try,” was the emphatic rejoinder. “I’ll never
chase another antelope on horseback, unless I am in danger of going
hungry. Why, his forelegs were all cut to pieces!”
“That’s another thing they always do when they begin to get tired and
are hard pressed. It is because they don’t pick up their forefeet fast
enough to keep them out of the way of the hind ones. Well, we have seen
all we shall see of this drive, and we’d better go back and find the
others. The colonel will want to try the speed of his dogs now. You’ll
not mind looking at a pretty race, I suppose?”
“I shall take no part in it,” answered Oscar. “If the colonel wants more
antelope, why doesn’t he shoot them and be done with it?”
The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders as if to say that what the colonel
did was something he could not answer for, and after that the two rode
in silence, the officer now and then turning in his saddle to gaze in
the direction in which the fawn had disappeared, and acting altogether
as if he had half a mind to turn about and resume the pursuit on his own
responsibility.
He believed in making as large a bag as he could when he went hunting,
and the loss of the fawn troubled him not a little.
Oscar had almost decided to let the other captive go free also; but,
when he reached the place where it had been left, he found that it was
but slightly injured, not having been so long and perseveringly pushed
as its mate; so he decided to keep it if he could, and take it back to
the States with him.
Sam Hynes would go into ecstasies over a gift like that, and, as for his
handsome sister, she—that is—well, he would take it home with him,
anyhow.
Having made his lasso fast around the fawn’s fore shoulders, Oscar, with
the lieutenant’s assistance, untied its legs and allowed it to spring to
its feet.
It “bucked” beautifully for a while, and made the most desperate efforts
to escape; but at last it became exhausted by its useless struggling and
permitted its captor to lead it back to the place where the doe had been
brought down by the shot from Oscar’s revolver.
She proved to be a very fine specimen, and the lieutenant, who had been
in at the death of more than one antelope during the time he had been on
the plains, assured the lucky hunter that he would see but few larger.
While they were examining their prize the colonel and the rest of the
party appeared on the plateau; and, after looking at the boys through
their field-glasses, one of them separated himself from his companions
and began riding his horse in a circle at a full gallop.
“What is he doing that for?” asked Oscar, when he saw the lieutenant
laugh and swing his hat about his head.
“I suppose he wants us to go there,” was the reply; “but he is giving
the wrong signal. He is riding ‘Danger! get together at once.’ The first
time I saw that signal, I tell you it made my hair stand right up on
end. I was out on a scout with a small party, when one of our lookouts,
who was so far away from us that we could hardly see him with the naked
eye, began riding in a circle; and, by the time we were ready for
action, we had ten times our number of Indians down with us. We can
communicate with one another with our horses and our hands as easily as
we could with signal-flags. If two or more columns of troops are
marching through the same country out of sight of each other they raise
smokes.”
The lieutenant went on to explain the different signals that were in
vogue among the soldiers; and, by the time he had succeeded in making
Oscar understand them, they reached the plateau where the colonel’s
party was engaged in picking up the antelope that had fallen to their
revolvers, and putting them into the wagon, which the teamster had
brought up in obedience to a signal from his commander.
The officers were loud in their praises of Oscar’s skill, he having been
the only one who was fortunate enough to capture any of the fawns alive,
and they were both surprised and amused when they learned that one of
his captives had been set at liberty “because it cried.”
Leaving the teamster and the Indian to pick up the rest of the game and
to care for the captive fawn, the party, accompanied by the hounds,
which were now to be allowed to share in the sport, rode away from the
plateau from which all the herds had been driven by the noise of the
chase, and set out to hunt up a suitable coursing-ground.
After a five-mile gallop they found themselves on a level plain, bounded
on all sides by high ridges, on the top of which they saw several small
herds of prong-horns feeding in fancied security. They had taken
measures to provide for their safety, having posted sentinels on the
highest points of the ridges.
From their commanding elevations these lookouts could survey the plain
for a long distance on two sides, their view in other directions being
obstructed at intervals by thickly wooded ravines, under cover of which
a cautious hunter could approach within easy rifle-range.
The colonel, who always acted as chief huntsman, now made a change in
his programme.
Three of the party were at once sent off with orders to make a wide
detour and find concealment in one of the ravines before spoken of.
When they had approached as close to the game as they could, they were
to show themselves suddenly, and drive the herds into the plain, so that
the hounds would be given a fair chance to show their speed.
As soon as the selected three had ridden away, the rest of the party, of
whom Oscar was one, moved behind a swell out of sight; and, after
turning their horses loose, stretched themselves out in the grass to
wait until the time for action arrived.
The hounds were with his party, and, well trained as they were, it was a
task of no little difficulty to restrain them. They had obtained a fair
view of their prospective game, and were eager to be sent in pursuit of
it. The colonel frequently consulted his watch; and, at the end of an
hour, gave the order to “catch up,” which is a plainsman’s way of saying
“get ready for the start.”
He had calculated, almost to a minute, the time which the detachment he
had sent off would consume in reaching the cover of the nearest ravine.
As he and Oscar rode to the top of the swell behind which they had been
concealed, three mounted figures suddenly appeared in sight and charged
upon the game.
The little animals scattered in all directions, some securing their
safety by turning squarely off and running the wrong way, while the
others, seeing no enemy on the plain below them, darted down the ridges
and held a straight course for the colonel’s party.
The impatience of the hounds increased as the distance between them and
the approaching antelope was lessened; but their master had them under
perfect control, and not one of them moved until the word was given.
When the nearest of the herd had arrived within three hundred yards of
the ridge on which their new enemies were crouching in the tall grass,
the colonel raised a yell, and the chase began.
It was fully as exciting as Oscar thought it would be, but he did not
take as much interest in it as his friends did, for he could not help
feeling sorry for the terrified creatures, who had nothing but their
speed to depend upon.
Like the rest, he urged his horse forward at her best pace, in order to
obtain as good a view of the run as he could; but his sympathies were
all with the game, and he could not repress a shout of exultation when
he saw one of the antelope suddenly turn at bay and tumble the nearest
hound over with a vicious prod from his sharp little horns.
But, before it could repeat the blow, the other hound—the sagacious
animals hunted in couples—pulled it down and ended its struggles in a
moment.
Three antelope were captured during the run; and, as both horses and
dogs were pretty well tired out by this time, the hunters dressed their
game on the spot, and then set out for camp. Supper was waiting for
them, and they were hungry enough to do ample justice to it.
There was still one way of hunting prong-horns that our hero had not
tried, and when the colonel had smoked his after-supper cigar he
proposed to show Oscar how it was done.
Leaving the rest in camp with the hounds, they rode back to the plateau
on which they had first sighted game in the morning, each carrying his
rifle slung over his shoulder, and in his hand a long pole, with a red
handkerchief attached to it.
The animals they had pursued in the morning, having got over their
fright, had returned to their feeding grounds, and the colonel’s first
move was to attract the attention of some of them, which he did by
riding slowly back and forth on the edge of the plateau.
Then he and Oscar dismounted, and, after hobbling their horses, planted
their poles in the ground a few rods apart, and lay down in the grass to
await developments.
The prong-horns watched all their motions with the keenest interest,
and, as if by a common impulse, began circling around the fluttering
handkerchiefs as if trying to learn what they were put there for.
Three of their number, one of them being the finest buck in the herd,
very soon found out; for, the instant they came within range, the ready
rifles cracked, and both the bullets went straight to the mark.
The colonel got in another effective shot before the herd was out of
reach of his breechloader, and these three, added to the number they had
shot in the morning and secured with the aid of the hounds, made eleven
fine animals they had to show as the result of their day’s work.
Oscar, all inexperienced as he was, had done better than any of his
companions. If he had not released that captured fawn, he would have had
more to his credit than any other member of the party.