WISE MEN OF THE PRAIRIE

John Thorp started the tradition. A truck driver with half of Montana unrolling before his windshield every week, he spotted an antelope standing sentinel on a high bench, fingered the tag in his pocket, and found the right door to knock on. The rancher, Roger Indreland, looked to have been born wearing a duster. He was salt of the earth, but then so was John, a farm kid who had grown up in North Dakota. A handshake more than 30 years ago, and we have been hunting these mixedgrass prairies ever since.

There are five of us: John and myself, Dean Center, Mike Connell, and Ted Hanson. We started here as young men who emphasized shooting straight and hanging horns, but in time that