hunt for the tawny one, and we found 

 the poor quarry in its death agony. 

 The lion of course had removed him- 

 self at our approach. He could af- 

 ford to leave the meal, it would wait 

 for him. It was but humane to put 

 a bullet where it would speed oblivion 

 to the cruelly wounded deer. That 

 bullet of mercy, mark it well, we had 

 trouble enough with it and with 

 another. It would seem that 

 innocence and good intentions must 

 be protected, but vice, expecting 

 punishment, takes care of its own. 



We searched long for the little 

 blacktail, but they were successfully 

 hidden. Nimrod calmed my distress 

 for their motherless, unprotected 

 condition by saying that they were 

 big enough to be weaned and there 

 was a good chance of them being able 

 to feed themselves if the Angel of 

 the Wild Things would protect them 

 from enemies. I knew that a very 

 young fawn would probably starve to 

 death on the spot where it dropped, 

 when the mother gave the signal to 

 freeze waiting, waiting for its pro- 

 tector's little grunt of release. 



On the way back to camp Nimrod 



