32 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



Here we moved with redoubled caution, for 

 the sign had grown very fresh and the animals 

 had once more scattered and begun feeding. 

 When the trail led across the glades we usually 

 skirted them so as to keep in the timber. 



At last, on n earing the edge of one of these 

 glades we saw a movement among the young 

 trees on the other side, not fifty yards away. 

 Peering through the safe shelter yielded by 

 some thick evergreen bushes, we speedily 

 made out three bison, a cow, a calf, and a 

 yearling, grazing greedily on the other side of 

 the glade, under the fringing timber ; all with 

 their heads up hill. Soon another cow and 

 calf stepped out after them. I did not wish 

 to shoot, waiting for the appearance of the big 

 bull which I knew was accompanying them. 



So for several minutes I watched the great, 

 clumsy, shaggy beasts, as all unconscious they 

 grazed in the open glade. Behind them rose 

 the dark pines. At the left of the glade the 

 ground fell away to form the side of a chasm ; 

 down in its depths the cataracts foamed and 

 thundered; beyond, the huge mountains 

 towered, their crests crimsoned by the sinking 

 sun. Mixed with the eager excitement of the 

 hunter was a certain half melancholy feeling 

 as I gazed on these bison, themselves part of 

 the last remnant of a doomed and nearly 

 vanished race. Few, indeed, are the men who 

 now have, or evermore shall have, the chance 

 of seeing the mightiest of American beasts, 

 in all his wild vigor, surrounded by the tremen- 

 dous desolation of his far-off mountain home. 



