ON THE PRAIRIE 149 



hungry and tired, and had met with bad 

 weather, and all kinds of accidents ; in ad- 

 dition to which I had shot badly. But a 

 man who is fond of sport, and yet is not 

 naturally a good hunter, soon learns that if 

 he wishes any success at all he must both 

 keep in memory and put in practice An- 

 thony Trollope's famous precept : ' It's 

 dogged as does it." And if he keeps dog- 

 gedly on in his course the odds are heavy 

 that in the end the longest lane will prove to 

 have a turning. Such was the case on this 

 occasion. 



Shortly after mid-day we left the creek 

 bottom, and skirted a ridge of broken buttes, 

 cut up by gullies and winding ravines, in 

 whose bottoms grew bunch grass. While 

 passing near the mouth, and to leeward of 

 one of these ravines, both ponies threw up 

 their heads, and snuffed the air, turning 

 their muzzles towards the head of the gully. 

 Feeling sure that they had smelt some wild 

 beast, either a bear or a buffalo, I slipped 

 off my pony, and ran quickly but cautiously 



