356 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



soon the giant body of the finest of all deer, and perhaps of all 

 meat (for were we not altogether pot-hunters to-day ?), issued 

 to view. 



" Take her with your heavy rifle as she stands," whispered 

 Bronson, as he again strove in vain to set his frozen Winchester 

 ready for action. 



" Buck-fever " is a malady from which I as well as others 

 cannot claim to be on every occasion free ; and buck-fever, I 

 assure you, is only too liable to assume an aggravated form 

 when the thermometer is ranging 30° or 40° below zero. So it 

 was due, either to a sudden seizure of the complaint or to 

 some mistake as to distance, that my first bullet merely kicked 

 the snow up under her legs, while the left barrel, with the 

 sight at three hundred yards, only answered the purpose of 

 breaking her near hind below the hock. (A cow-elk, you will 

 already have realised ; but even a cow-elk was on the Mispah 

 as rare a bird as the blackest of swans — and then the amount 

 of meat !) 



"That's done her!" cried Bronson, as he pinged another 

 bullet in her direction, slipping the hammer from his thumb ; 

 then, leaping to his saddle, set forth to head her round. 



I was to stand where I was, while he accomplished his 

 apparently easy task with the wounded beast. So for a minute 

 or two I stood till I saw the elk (at last realising whence her 

 pain and danger came) making very rapid tracks up the hill, 

 round which my companion had disappeared. Then I, too, 

 sought saddle and pursuit — to ride a harder chase than I had 

 ever ridden from Ranksboro' or Melton Spinney. 



The three-legged giant had much the pace of my Indian 

 pony, though the latter had won many a " six-hundred yards " 

 match among the cowboys ; and as she vanished over the 

 brow I felt that the betting was at least a shade of odds in her 

 favour. 



The prairie here was excellent going — for miles free from 

 sage-bush, and broken only by an occasional easy creek-bed. 

 Snow to the depth of half-a-dozen inches covered the whole of 



