i 2 8 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



in a circle, their heads all turned inwards, while 

 from time to time two of them rushed together, 

 and caused the sound we heard, horn shocking 

 heavily against horn. We watched them for 

 some time, and then followed my wounded ram, 

 which we found on the face of the cliffs, spent 

 and dying. My bullet, meant as a coup de grace, 

 brought him to life again, but after a blind 

 charge downhill he lay apparently dead about 

 200 yards below me. On getting down to him 

 he rose again and went off best pace downhill, 

 with me after him, until he suddenly dropped 

 clean out of sight, and by throwing myself flat 

 upon my back I just saved myself from following 

 him over a precipice quite high enough to have 

 finished my career. 



Having scalped him, Toma and I went back 

 to our first * kill,' which we found where I fired 

 at him, covered already with a gray frost, and 

 looking as big as a pony on the hillside. My 

 bullet had caught him full in the middle of the 

 chest, and he had dropped dead at once, with a 

 head of something like white clover still held in 

 the side of his mouth, as a groom holds a straw. 

 I measured him as he lay, and found him from 

 the root of the tail to the nape of the neck 3 feet 

 6 inches, while his girth was 3 feet 9 inches, and 

 his approximate height at the shoulder 3 feet 



