The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1890-06-12
DlSCRAcEFUL SPORT.
Siau ghter of II Herd of AnteloPes In q
Barbed Wire Enclosure in Wyoming.

4 Siau glitter of n Herd of AnteIoPes In q
Barbed Wire Enclosure in Wyoming.
A story of an antelope hunt comes
/ from Wyoming, which. though inter
esting. is bv no means cheering to the
sportsmon who dread the utter destrue-
tioE of all game by useless slaughter.
1t appears that a large riiich in Nyom-
ing was managed by an Engiishman
and owned chiefly by Englishmcn. al
though there was some American cap
ital invested. The ranch included
eighteen sections of land. and was laid
cut three miles wide by six long. The
whole was enclosed by a fire-wire buck
thorn fence of the most substantial
character. Large brcadths 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 manager
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 Il wolf hunt. Mount
ing their horses, they formed 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 as
the natives in Africa drive game into a
V-shaped corral and butcher it,
This was made possible, with skill
ful management, by the fact that an
telopes. although they easily jump IA
fence when enterin@-a field. get 50 ex-
cited when chased by Il whooping gang
of horsemen that they run hither and
yOn along the fence, until ut last they
charge back among the advancing
butchers
The line in this case was fortunately
not well managed. though the slauoht-
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
lopeS that were from 200 to 1,500
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.
A little later. when the game WAS be-
ing driven toward IA corner. II buoch
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 in Il 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 throats of the game shot.
Through this gap more than 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
save 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 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 anticipations of see
ing 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-
tions 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 had 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
tridges lying on the ground. An ex-
animation showed that the cartridges
had been reloaded by the gunner him
self, but he had forgotten to remove
the old caps from the shells and put on
new ones before reloading.
In all eleven antelopes were killed in
the round up. and it is supposed a
dozen more were wounded, but es-
capped. That was bad enough, though
not so bad as other roundups which
were probably held afterward were
likely to be. 1t seems particularly un-
fortunate that an animal like the an
telope should be slaughtered in such
a merciless fashion, when it is remem-
bered that save in western Texas and
in two or three districts in the north
ern part of the country the species is
eXtinct.--N T. .Sun.