The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-04-08
BUFFALO AND ANTELOPE.
Ranch Life and Game-Shooting in the


Ranch Life and Game-Shooting in the
West
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt thus writes in
| Outing for March: To see the rapidity
with which the larger kind of game
animals are being exterminated through
| out the United States is really melan-
choly. Twenty-Five years ago. or even
| fifteen years ago, the western plains and
mountains were in places fairly
| thronged with deer, elk, antelope and
| buffalo. Indeed, there was then no
| other part of the world. save South
Africa where the number of individuals
of large game animals was so large.
| All this has now been changed, or else
is being changed at a really remarka-
BILE speed. The buffalo are already gone;
a few Struggling individuals, and per-
| haps here and there a herd so small
| that that it can hardly be called more
than a squad, are all that remain. Over
| forr-fifths of their former range the
| same fate has befallen the elk, and their
number, even among the mountainous
| haunts, which still afford them refuge,
| is greatly decreased. The shrinkage
| among deer and antelope has been rel
| atively nearly as serious. There are
| but few places left now where it is pro-
| fitable for man to take to hunting as
| a profession; the brutal skin-hunters
| and meat butchers of the woods and
| prairies have done their work, and
these buckskin-clad and greasy Nimrods
are now themselves sharing the fate of
the game that has disappeared from be-
| fore their rifles.
Still, however, there is plenty of sport
| TO be had by men who are of more or
less adventurous turn of mind and sutfi-
ciently hardy and resolute to be willing
/ to stand rough work and scant fare;
and, of course, excepting men who 60
| out to spend some months in travelling
| solely for purpose OF sport, no class has
| as much chance to get it as is the case
with the ranchmen, whose herds now
cover the great plains of the West, and
even range well up on the foothills of
| the Rocky Mountains. All my own
hunting has been done simply in the
! intervals of the numerous duties of
ranch life; and in order to understand
! the way we set out on a trip after game
| it is necessary also to understand a
| little about the nature of our homes and
! surroundings.
| Many of the ranches are mere mud
| novels or log shanties, stuck down in
! any raw, treeless spot where there hap
! pen to be water or grass; but many
others are really beautifully situated.
and though very rude in construction,
! are still large enough and solid enough
to yield ample comfort to the inmates.
One such now in my mind, which is
| placed in a bend of the Heart river,
could not possibly be surpassed as re-
/ CARDS the romantic beauty of its sur
roundings. My own house stands on a
| bottom of the Little Missouri nearly two
miles in length, and perhaps half a
/ mile or over in width, from the brink of
/ the current TO the line of steep and
| Jagged buttes that rise sharply up to
| bound it on the side farthest from the
| river Part of this bottom is open,
| covered only with rank grass and
/ sprawling sage-brush; but there are
! patches of dense woodland, where the
! brittle cottonwood trees grow close to-
! gether and stretch their heads high in
! the air The house itself made out of
hewn logs, is in a large open glade
many miles in extent. 1t fronts the
river in its length of sixty feet, and
along the front runs a broad veranda,
where we sit in our rocking-chairs in
| the Summer time when the days work
/ is done. Within it is divided into sew
eral rooms; one of these is where we
| spend the Winter evenings at the time
when the cold has set in with a bitter
intensity hardly known in any part of
the United States. A huge fireplace
contains the great logs of cedar and
cottonwood: skinks of elk and deer
cover the floor, while wolf and fox furs
hang from the walls; antlers and horns
| are thrust into the rafters to serve as
pegs on which to hang coats and caps
In the glade. beside the house, there
are several other buildings-a stable, a
smithv and two or three sheds and out
houses, besides a high, circular, horse
corral, with a snubbing post in the
center, and fenced-in patch of garden
! land. The river itself is usually shall
low, rapid stream that man can wade
across, but that can not carry the light
est boat but when the snow melts, or
after heavy rains, it is changed into a
boiling, muddy torrent that can not be
crossed by man or beast, and that will
bear huge RATS. 1t is at all times dam
! gerous to cross on account of the quick
sands. but after a series of freshets the
whole river can be described as simply
! four or five feet of turbulent water run
ming down over moving mass of
quicksand three feet in depth, that fills
! the entire bed of the stream. In ordl-
nary floods there will remain certain
fords and rapids that can be crossed, but
at times any horse that dared to at
| tempt a passage, no matter where,
would be almost certainly lost.
Back from the river for several miles
extends stretch of broken and intense
" rugged country, known in plains par
| lance as '.bad lands. 1t consists of
chains of steep buttes or hills. often
spreading out into table-lands and sepa-
rated by a network of deep ravines and
winding valleys. which branch out in
every direction. When we pass these
| bad lands we come to the open prairie,
which stretches out on every side IN
level or undulating expanse as far as
| the eye can reach. In few of the gor-
ges in the bad lands there are groves OF
wind beaten pines, or dwarfed cedars,
| favorite haunts of the black-tail deer.
Frank Mullin, Philadelphia express