246 A NOBLE ANIMAL. 



my ball hit him right in his chest. The pain aroused the 

 noble beast, and raising himself in a burst of fury, he 

 rushed in my direction. To fly in snow-shoes was an 

 impossibility; I therefore thought it wiser to wait for the 

 elk, whose strength I knew must immediately fail him. 

 I fired my second ball with my muzzle almost touching 

 him ; immediately he halted, tottered, and grew stiff ; 

 his neck was stretched out, and the blood poured from 

 his nostrils and mouth, which was open to permit the 

 protrusion of his panting tongue. A moment more and 

 the poor animal sank in the snow, as if he had wished to 

 find some solace in his last severe agony. 



Spite of his death-fall, however, the dogs durst not 

 approach him. The two Indians, who had followed me, 

 and been witnesses of the encounter, waited patiently ; 

 they feared the last convulsions of that supreme moment, 

 for the animal who feels himself dying is oftentimes more 

 dangerous than he who possesses all the vigour of life. 

 It is advisable therefore to bide your time; so, it was 

 not until the eye of the elk had become glassy, and death 

 had stiffened his nervous limbs, that we thought it prudent 

 to draw near and at our ease examine the inanimate mass 

 lying before us. 



I had never seen a more enormous specimen of his 

 tribe ; he might almost have been mistaken for a young 

 horse in body ; and the antlers which crowned his head 

 measured nearly six feet in height. Hoofs as large as 

 those of an ass terminated four legs as slender as those 

 of a giraffe. As a whole, this elk the first which I 

 had seen out of a cabinet of natural history appeared 

 to me the most admirable of the animals of creation, 



