88 The Wilderness Hunter. 



selves altogether baffled by the exceeding roughness of 

 the ground. There was some little risk to us who were on 

 horseback, dragging the carcass ; we had to feel our way 

 along knife-like ridges in the dark, one ahead and the 

 other behind, while the steer dangled over the precipice 

 on one side ; and in going down the buttes and into the 

 canyons only by extreme care could we avoid getting 

 tangled in the ropes and rolling down in a heap. More- 

 over the fire was in such rough places that the carcass 

 could not be twitched fairly over it, and so we could not 

 put it out. Before dawn we were obliged to abandon 

 our fruitless efforts and seek camp, stiffened and weary. 

 From a hill we looked back through the pitchy night at 

 the fire we had failed to conquer. It had been broken 

 into many lines by the roughness of the chasm-strewn and 

 hilly country. Of these lines of flame some were in ad- 

 vance, some behind, some rushing forward in full blast 

 and fury, some standing still ; here and there one wheel- 

 ing towards a flank, or burning in a semicircle, round an 

 isolated hill. Some of the lines were flickering out ; gaps 

 were showing in others. In the darkness it looked like 

 the rush of a mighty army, bearing triumphantly onwards, 

 in spite of a resistance so stubborn as to break its forma- 

 tion into many fragments and cause each one of them to 

 wage its own battle for victory or defeat. 



On the wide plains where the prong-buck dwells the 

 hunter must sometimes face thirst, as well as fire and frost. 

 The only time I ever really suffered from thirst was while 

 hunting prong-buck. 



