300 A HUNTER'S HEART. 



approached him, and his going out of his line to put 

 creeks and difficulties between pursuer and pursued, 

 whenever he found himself out-paced, showed that he was 

 thinking all the time of the work in hand, and the best 

 means for his own escape. The moment he had thus 

 placed difficulties between me and him, he invariably put 

 on all the speed he could, from which speed he again 

 slackened when he found the difficulty of no avail. The 

 expression of the animal when at last he discovered that 

 flight and difficulty no longer availed him, and that he 

 must fight, was most savagely grand ; and the change in 

 his aspect, after driving me back several times, when he 

 deemed that he had succeeded in scaring me from imme 

 diate contact, the only tug of war natural to him and which 

 he dreamed of, was remarkable in the extreme. I shall never 

 forget the placidity of his eyes nor the expression of the 

 no longer furious face, when, treating me with contempt, 

 the bison raised his head, and fixed his longing and 

 inquiring look on the far-off undulations of the plains 

 whence he had been driven, and where he knew he had 

 left the things he loved ; and, I repeat, that had I con 

 sidered my own feelings, and not what some people would 

 have been too happy to have said of the event of this chase, 

 I should have been inclined to have let the noble bull have 

 taken his chance against other hunters, and have spared 

 his life ; for I loved the animal kingdom too much to be 

 needlessly prodigal of life. The event, however, termin 

 ated as I have told the reader, and the game was slain. 



It was necessary for me some time ago to refer to this 

 peculiarly successful chase, because the " Jefferson Bricks" 

 of Charles Dickens had been snarling at me in portions of 

 the press in the United States, from my first advent to their 

 land up to the time of my departure, and these "means" 



