The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1890-06-06
plscRAcEEul- SPORT.
A Slaughter of q Herd of Antelopes In q
Barbed Wire Enclosure In Wyoming.

~
A story of an antelope hunt comes
from Wyoming, which, though inter
esting. is by no means cheering to the
sportsmon who dread the utter destruc-
ton of all game by useless slaughter.
1t appears that a large ranch in Wyom-
ing was managed by an Englishmau
and owned chiefly - Englishmen, al
though there was some American cap
ital invested. The ranch included
eighteen sections of land. and was laid
II three miles wide by six long. The
whole was enclosed by a five-wire buck
thorn fence of the most substantial
character. Large breadths had been
sown to wheat, and so last spring,
after warm weather came, the ante
lopes gathered from great distances to
eat the young grain.
To the mind of the English nae
of the estate this called for a violent
remedy. He therefore sent to his
friends around about, and a party was
gathered as if for a wolf hunt. Mount
ing their horses, they formed a line
across one end of the plantation and
rode slowly toward the opposite end,
intending to corner the game and
then shoot it down comfortably, just us
the natives in Africa drive game into "A
V-shaped corral and butcher it.
This was made possible, with skill
full management, by the fact that an
telopes. although they easily jump a
fence when entering Il field, get so ex-
cited when chased by a whooping gang
of horsemen that they run hitler and
yon along the fence, until at last they
charge back among the advancing.
butchers.
The line in this case was fortunately
not well managed. though the slaught-
er was bad enough. The men in line
were armed with repeating rifles. Be-
fore more than half the ground was
covered two or three of the party be-
came so excited over the appearance of
the game that they opened fire. Ante
lopcs that were from 1900 to 1,50O
yards away were shot at with the effect
of alarming them and causing many of
them to stampede back through the
line before it had closed in sufficiently
to make the slaughter complete.
y little later, when the game WAS le-
ing driven toward a corner a bunch
broke back through the line, and two
of the men got down off their horses
and shot three dead. 1t happened
that this killing was done il II hollow
where the rest of the men in line did
not see it. So the line kept advancing,
and, luckily for the antelopes, a widen
ing gap was left in the center of the
line where the two men had dropped
out to cut the Threats of the game shot.
Through this gap more than a score of
the antelopes escaped.
Having finished With the three dead
antelopes, the two men galloped on
after the line. When they overlook it
there were still nearly a hundred an
telopes enclosed within it, and the long
range shooting was still serving to
gave the lives Of some OF the unfortu-
nate beasts.
Eventually, however, the men got so
close to the game that five antelopes
were killed from one bunch. When
these had been attended to, the grand
final onslaught was made. Curiously
enough. it happened that the main
body charged on a man who had been
reserving his fire in order TO make it
deadly at short range. His associates
looked on as the game approached him
with the liveliest auticipations of see
ing a great slaughter, but only to see
him at last working the pump handle of
his gun with desperate but unavailing
energy. He went through all the mo-
lions properly, but no flash nor smoke
was seen nor was any report heard.
Again the pump would be worked but
with the same result.
When the game had all scattered
and other men in the line had killed
three head only. they gathered about
the luckless gunner. He declared that
he bad somehow forgotten to charge
his magazine, and he was in a state of
great excitement over it until some of
the party went to the place where he
had stood trying to fire. There they
discovered a magazine full of car
ridges lying on the ground. An ex-
animation showed that the cartridges
aad been reloaded by the gunner him
self. but he had forgotten to remove
;tc old caps from the shells and put on
new ones before reloading.
In all eleven antelopes were killed in
the round up. aud II "a supposed a
dozen more We're wounded, but cs-
,aped. That was bad enough, though
aot SO bad as other roundups which
were probably held afterward were
likely to be. II seems particularly I'M
fortunate that an animal like the an
'clope should be slaughtered in such
! merciless fashion, when it is rcmem
oered that save in western Texas and
In two or three districts in the north
.rn part of the country the species is
sxtinct.-N. Y. Sun.
VIII Deal W.. on pie.