CHAPTER XVII.

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.