The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1890-07-26
ANTELOPE KILLING.
An Animal Which is Nearly
Extinct.
A Round Up" in a Barbed Wire
Enclosure in Wyoming.

town gun store the other day. But,
though interesting, it was by no means
cheering to tho sportsmen who dreai
the utter destruction of all game by
useless slaughter. It appears that a
large ranch in Wyoming was managed
by an Englishman and owned chiefly by
Englishmen, although there was some
American capital invested. The ranch
included eighteen sections of land, and
was laid out three miles wide by six
long. The whole was enclosed by a
fve-wire buckthorn fence of the most
substantial character. Large bre adths
had been sown to wheat. and so last
spring, after warm weather came, the
antelopes 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. The antelopes must be exter-
minated. He therefore sent to his
friends around about, and party was
gathered as if for wo.f hunt. Mount
Jag their horses, they formed a line
across one end of the plantation and
then rode slowly toward the opposite
end, in tending to corner the game and
then shoot it down comfortably, Just as
the natives in Africa drive game into a
V-shapcd corral and butcher it.
This was made possible, with skilful
management, By the fact that antelopes,
although they easily Jumped fence when
entering field, get so excited when
chased by whooping gang ofhorsemen
that they run hither and You along the
fence, until at las: they charg, back
among the advancing butchers.
The line in this case was fortunately
not well managed. though the s.aught-
err was bad enough. The men in line
were armel 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 1900 to 1900 yards
away were shot at with the effect of alarm
ing 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
being driven toward corner. a bunch
broke back through the line, and two
Of the men got down off their horses
and shot three dead. 1t happe ned that
This killing was done in a hollow where
the rest of the men in line did not see
it. So the line kept advancing. and,
luckily for the antelope, a widening
gap was left in the centre of the line
where the two men had dropped out
to cut the Threats 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 ante.
lopes enclosed within it, and the long
range shooting was still serving to save
the lives of some of the unfortunate
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 reserv.
ing 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 seeing q
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
motions properly. but no flash nor
smoke was seen nor was any report
heard. Again the p-mp would lie
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
luokless gunner. He declared that he