Big Game Shooting 259 



stony country, but we never got another shot at 

 our quarry. 



Talking of missing, I am reminded of another 

 bitter experience that befell me many years ago 

 near the Teton Basin in Wyoming. We had left 

 our waggon, and taking a couple of pack-horses, 

 made an excursion into a desolate country known 

 as the " Bad Lands ; " bad they were indeed : bleak 

 and sterile hills rising out of alkali plains ! But 

 here we are told, and here only, the last of the bison 

 might be found, and here we found them. We 

 camped near a small spring whose waters were as 

 those of Marah, and made an early start the next 

 day. Before ten o'clock we were nearly dead with 

 fatigue, and consumed by an intolerable thirst. The 

 sun streamed down upon the glistening alkali and 

 up again into our aching eyes ; the ground upon 

 which we trod seemed to emit a sickly and over- 

 powering heat. At noon my cousin returned to 

 camp, but I rode on, glass in hand, scanning eagerly 

 hill after hill, seeking in vain that small black 

 blot upon the brown landscape which would surely 

 prove a bull bison. And at last, as I was beginning 

 to despair, I saw two blots. Bison they proved, but 

 how to stalk them successfully taxed imagination 

 no less than experience. Finally I dismounted, 

 tied my horse, and began a long and tedious stalk. 

 I was compelled to crawl more than half a mile, 

 lying face downward on the burning sand. As I 

 crawled I was sensible for the first time in my life 

 of the horrors of thirst, for my tongue began to 

 swell ; but I can swear that I was happy, for my 

 ambition, so I thought, was about to be not satisfied 



