Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1895 — AN ANTELOPE HORSE. [ARTICLE]

AN ANTELOPE HORSE.

Trained for the Sport and Knows All the Fine Points. “I had ahorse,’’ said an old army man, “that had belonged once to the Seventh Cavalry, but he had the ‘I. C.’ brand under his mane, so he was out of the service Inspected and condemned. Ho was a regular old plug, but he was all I could get to go hunting on, so I took him. I rode away out into the plains from the fort and I saw a bunch of antelope finally. I got off the horse and dropped the reins on tho ground, expecting the horse to stand there till I came back. I started off toward the antelope,and was sneaking along to get a shot when I looked around and I’ll be blamed if that brute of a horse hadn’t started off as tight as ho could lope. “ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘I guess I’m in for a six mile tramp home, and then I went on. l’retty soon I looked up, and I’m blessed if there wasn’t that horse over the other side of that bunch of antelope. ‘Well, now,’says I, ‘l’d like to know what the devil that horse thinks lie’s up to anyhow.’ Pretty soon he began to circle around on the other side, and the antelope saw him and started off toward me. I caught on at once and I lay down and waited. That old horse cut up the most surprising antics out there, and all the while he kept working those antelope towai /. me. By and by they got in range, and I got two; darned good luck it was, too. You see that horse was an old Indian hunting pony, and he had been trained to do that way. Well, I went back to the post, and everybody wanted to know how it happened I had such good luck. But I didn’t tell ’em. Not then. “A few days after I took that same horse out after prairie chickens. It was the time of the year when the chickens were flying and I was riding along when all of a sudden the critter stopped short, braced himself and waited—for what I didn’t know. But in a second a couple of chickens flew up ahead of me and I was so surprised I didn’t shoot. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘l’ll be switched. Here’s a horse that’s not only a hunting horse but is a regular pointer dog, too.’ And he was. I got my gun ready and the next time he stopped I was right on hand and dropped a bird. Well, now, no sooner did that horse see that bird fall than he galloped off right to where it fell and all I had to do was to reach off and pick it up. He was a great horse, I tell you, and I got lots of good hunting with him.”