command the surrounding country. When well roused, they are thoroughly on the alert; the hunter will often find that, though he has moved toward them silently, up the wind and under cover, they have suspected sinister intentions and have shifted ground.
Besides the antelope, there are three species of deer in the regions east of the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps the most common is the red deer of the Eastern States (Cervus Virginianus; le chevreuil): it extends almost throughout the length of the continent, and is seemingly independent of altitude as of latitude. The venison is not considered equal to that of the antelope; travelers, however, kill off the deer to save butchers' bills, so that it is now seldom "glimpsed" from the line of route. The black-tailed or long-eared deer (Cervus macrotis) is confined to the higher ground; it has similar habits to the red variety, and is hunted in the same way. The long-tailed, or jumping deer (Cervus leucrurus, vulgarly called the roebuck), affects, like the black-tailed, the Rocky Mountains. The elk (Cervus Canadensis) is found in parts of Utah Territory and forty miles north of the mail-road, near the Wind-River Mountains—a perfect paradise for sportsmen. It is noble shooting, but poor eating as the Indian sambar.[1] The moose (Cervus Alces), the giant of the deer kind, sometimes rising seventeen hands high, and weighing 1200 lbs., is an inhabitant of higher latitudes—Nova Scotia, Canada, Maine, and other parts of New England.
At Lodge-Pole Station, the mules, as might be expected from animals allowed to run wild every day in the week except one, were like newly-caught mustangs.[2] The herdsman—each station boasts of this official—mounted a nag barebacked, and, jingling a bell, drove the cattle into the corral, a square of twenty yards, formed by a wall of loose stones, four to five feet high. He wasted three quarters of an hour in this operation, which a well-trained shepherd's dog would have performed in a few minutes. Then two men entering with lassos or lariats, thongs of flexible plaited or twisted hide, and provided with an iron ring at one end to form the noose—the best are made of hemp, Russian, not Manilla—proceeded, in a great "muss" on a small scale, to secure their victims. The lasso[3] in their hands was by no means the
- ↑ The elk is being domesticated in the State of New York; it is still, however, doubtful whether the animals will fatten well or supply milk, or serve for other than ornamental purposes.
- ↑ The mustang is the Spanish mesteño. The animal was introduced by the first colonists, and allowed to run at large. Its great variety of coat proves the mustang's degeneracy from the tame horse; according to travelers, cream-color, skewbald, and piebald being not uncommon. "Sparing in diet, a stranger to grain, easily satisfied whether on growing or dead grass, inured to all weathers, and capable of great labor," the mustang-pony is a treasure to the prairie-man.
- ↑ According to Mr. Bartlett, the lasso (Span, "lazo") is synonymous with "lariat" (Span. "lariata"). In common use, however, the first word is confined to the rope with which buffaloes, mustangs, or mules are caught; the second, which in the West is popularly pronounced "lariet," or "lariette," more generally means the article
