So, we did little hunting on our first day, just some armed scouting.  We shopped, got tags, finished setting up camp, collected wood, yakked with the ranch manager and the hunting manager, and celebrated my birthday.  I'd bought some candles and Hostess cakes.  Mike's present was a pair of shirts I'd given him years ago as a present.  (I also gave him the email birthday greetings that you guys sent - David) It was wonderful.

Fri Oct 9

     Day two dawned cold and snowy.  We drove new territory, saw a doe antelope playing with a badger.  Saw some antelope, but not as many as hoped for; and the bucks topped out at perhaps 14 inches and without dropping hooks.  David showed some interest but the cold and the blowing snow discouraged much adventure outside.  Mike didn't complain about his freezing feet.  We let darkness lead us to the cafe for dinner.

     The Bronco wouldn't start the next morning (10 degrees).  David got the bright idea to build a fire beneath the engine (at the opposite end from the leaking gas tank), or at least to fire up the Mr. Heater propane heater there.  We did, and within mere minutes she turned over.  Vunderbah!

     We made a failed stalk on one bunch.  I'll let David whisper his own inimitable words.  But the mud was pure Wyoming.

     We drove further down the road and saw in the distance a large flat field that hosted dozens of scattered antelope.  And bison. Mixed together.  With more bison on all of the surrounding hills. 

What to do?  Would stalking down stampede the buffalo?  Over our trampled bodies?  Would the rancher be peeved that we ran ten pounds of fat off each animal in his livelihood (10 x 1500 = 15,000, x $4/lb = $60,000, - 3 hunters @ $450/ trespass fee = <$58,650.00>)?  And how could we approach the 'lopes, anyway? - with nothing between us, at the end, but six-inch grass?  We sat in our warm car considering such questions, and had just about decided to drive on and worry about other, simpler, problems elsewhere, when Shark happened to drive by, searching for a deer to shoot.  We learned from him that the bison wouldn't much care, and neither would the owners; that we could do what we wished.  And he volunteered to drive down into the field and give the antelope a bit of a nudge out of the conglomeration.
     So off he went, out of sight around a hill of buffler.  And we sat in the car wondering what to do.  Surely he couldn't drive through the muddy field, and there was no road through it visible.  So he'd probably just spook them from the side, the near side.  Because the far side was a fence.  A boundary fence.  So there we were, unable to see Shark while he chased this big herd of antelope off the property for us; while we sat in a cold car just waiting, not hunting.  And we regretted that we'd agreed to let him interrupt his hunt to do this for us but we were committed- it'd be pretty rude of us to send him on the snipe hunt and just sneak away unseen.
     But, lo and becold, we saw the blue speck of the ranch Bronco (much more the worse for wear than mine) out in the middle of the pasture, seemingly, scattering bison up the hills and bunching antelope toward the head of the valley.  While we sat sucking our thumbs in the car.  We grabbed at our gear and scrambled, Mike to go down one wash, I another, and David to hike out to the jut of a ridgelet, with the hope of intercepting a shooter buck (if we, and it was doubtful, were in time; before they passed us and disappeared upvalley).  I got the latest start, because David had gone and left his rangefinder on the passenger seat. I called to him a few times but his hood must have deflected my entreaties, so I had to trot out in delivery.  On the way back from that errand I found his shooting sticks, dropped in the mud.  To heck with him and his shooting sticks; I carted them to the Bronco and left them on the hood and started to my own destination.
     I had a number of bison in front of me, but not for long.  They moved off singly and in small groups, which became larger groups; and pretty soon I had a thundering buffalo stampede going!  It was kinda neat (and not a bit frightening, as they were simply moving away from me).  As I moved down my wash I saw a few antelope run up and over the ridge to my left; obviously not part of the nudged herd, which was long out of view far ahead and towards the right.  Soon a group came over from lower on the left and trotted out of sight to my right, my view restricted by both sides of the shallow wash.  Then I waved as Shark drove by on the left, back up to the rock road.  I continued, sneakily, to the mouth of my wash, and soon saw the backs of some 'lopes ahead, probably the last group that'd trotted by.  A few more hunched steps brought me into view of a half-dozen only 75 yards away, oblivious, but the buck of the group wasn't a shooter.
     I let them drift away and then went a little farther, stopping now fully exposed to the whole lower valley.  No antelope were in sight; they must have all gone up the valley and around the corner.  I waited, to consider my options and to be ready if Mike or David, further up than I, pushed the animals back down my way.  And then I saw a red-hatted prairie dog head pop up from the ground a few hundred yards away.  And pop back out of sight.  After awhile it spurted up again, farther down an erosion ditch- it was my brother, Michael, well ahead of me.
     Beyond him, moving up onto the hillside across the valley, a group of antelope came back from upvalley.  I couldn't tell if Mike was stalking them, or even if he saw them, so I just stayed where I was.  They continued coming to the left, on the hillside, while Mike also bore left in his ditch- just his chest and above showing.  Then several more came from the bottom of the valley, around a bend I couldn't see, and started to follow the first; and it became apparent to me that Mike was unaware of any of them.  And there was a buck at the tail of the second group that might be suitable for him.  But they spotted Mike and retreated back upvalley.
     After a bit longer Mike crawled out of his hole.  The first group of antelope was by now high on the hillside and far out of range (and didn't contain anything worth shooting, anyway), and nothing was in sight, so I began to walk towards him.  We'd made no concrete plans for this excursion, no time limits or meeting sites or such, so wonderings about going back or going on or going crazy circulated under my stocking cap.  So I was going to palaver with brother, find out what he'd seen and what he knew, and debate our options.
     I think I'll let Johnny Magnum take it from here...