Another danger of camp-life proceeds from rattlesnakes and vipers, which are very susceptible of cold, and at night crawl close to the person of the sleeper for warmth. One officer—a friend of Colonel Dodge’s—once found a rattlesnake coiled up beneath his pillow; and another, when drawing on his boot, felt his foot come in contact with a soft substance; he dropped the boot at once, and a huge rattlesnake glided out. Another nocturnal visitor almost as much dreaded as the snakes is the skunk, a horrible little animal about the size of a cat, which makes its way into a camp and has been known to devour the face, hands, or any uncovered part of the nearest sleeper; a skunk-bite being almost invariably followed in certain portions of the Plains by hydrophobia.
The great attraction of the Plains to sportsmen is the variety and abundance of game which they contain. First in order, as being pre-eminently an habitué of the Plains, is the buffalo, or more properly speaking, the bison, and which, in spite of its apparent ferocity, is, according to Colonel Dodge, who knows its habits well, a mild, stupid, inoffensive animal.
The elk, although disappearing even faster than the buffalo, is still to be met with on the Plains; and his great size, magnificent antlers, and splendid form, stamp him as the monarch of the prairies. He is timid, and seldom even in the last extremity employs his great strength in his own defence; what he trusts to is his skill in doubling, dodging, and hiding, which in spite of his size he accomplishes as cunningly and successfully as a hare or a fox. Many varieties of the Deer tribe are found in the Plains; of these the black-tailed deer, the red-deer, and the antelope are the most abundant, affording in the proper season boundless supplies of the most delicious venison. The mountain-sheep can scarcely be called an inhabitant of the Plains; his chosen home being amid the wild crags and rugged fastnesses of mountain-ranges. He is a fine animal, with a body somewhat resembling that of a deer, and a sheep’s head surmounted by a pair of stupendous horns. His flesh is declared by the gourmands of the hunting fraternity to be the choicest of choice morsels, a delicious compound of venison and the finest Southdown mutton.