DEATH OF THE DOE. 175 



after them at our best pace. The run was evidently to be 

 soon over, for while the doe was going with a very short 

 stride and slow gather, the dogs were covering the ground 

 like quarter-horses ; in fact, before we had run ourselves out 

 of breath, the faster of the two, Nip, had ranged up even 

 with the doe, Tug being about three lengths behind. For a 

 distance Nip kept alongside, gathering himself together for 

 his spring and then with a sudden bound caught the doe 

 by the hock and threw her ; as she struck the ground Tug 

 had her by the throat, and in a few moments she received 

 the coup de grace. The doe proved to be a large black- 

 tailed deer, not fat, but in fair condition, weighing in the 

 neighbourhood of eighty pounds ten days' rations. We 

 felt safe. Long before the expiration of that time we hoped 

 to be rejoined by the absentees ; and, besides, there was a 

 probability of our getting more game. It was hardly likely 

 that the deer we had just killed was the only head in the 

 neighbourhood ; indeed the fact of seeing a blacktail in the 

 valley showed that the deer had commenced travelling, and 

 were returning to their old haunts. 



Let no one think ten days would be a short time for two 

 men, circumstanced as we then were, to eat up an eighty- 

 pound deer we could have done it in half the time ; we 

 were very hungry, we had been living for nearly a week on 

 boiled maize and salt only, nothing else. 



A man can do very well, for a time, without bread and 

 vegetables, or without tea, coffee, sugar, grease, or meat, 

 to say uothing of milk, butter, eggs, and fish ; but when he 

 goes without all those things, and subsists for a while on 

 half-a-handful of boiled maize only per diem, and that, 



