Krag, the Kootenay Ram 



sometimes impatiently stamping. Once he 

 looked about sharply, and once he would have 

 seen that deadly crawler in the snow, but that 

 his horn itself, his great right horn, must inter- 

 pose its breadth between his eye and his foe, 

 and so his last small chance of escape was 

 gone. Nearer, nearer to the sheltering rocks 

 crawled the Evil One. Then, safely reaching 

 them at last, he rested, a scant half-hundred 

 yards away. For the first time in his life he saw 

 the famous horns quite close. He saw the great, 

 broad shoulders, the curving neck, still massive, 

 though the mark of famine was on all ; he saw 

 this splendid fellow-creature blow the hot breath 

 of life from his nostrils, vibrant in the sun ; and he 

 even got a glimpse of the life-light in those glow- 

 ing amber eyes : but he slowly raised the gun. 



Oh, Mother White Wind, only blow! Let 

 not this be. Is all your power offset? Are not 

 a, million idle tons of snow on every peak await- 

 ing? And one, just one, will do ; a single flying 

 wreath of snow will save him yet. The noblest 

 living thing on all these hills, must he be stricken 

 down to glut the basest lust of man? Because 

 he erred but once, must he be doomed? 



95 



