146 GAME. 



with as many impossible stories as they can. One may 

 find out from them a good many valuable facts, by 

 listening, apparently uninterested, to their talk with each 

 other ; but show any interest or ask a direct question, and 

 a hundred to one that the answer is the hugest lie that 

 the spokesman can invent for the occasion. Under the 

 most favourable circumstances at least half of what these 

 old fellows tell is downright fabrication, and as it and 

 any thread of truth that there may be are told with the 

 same grave face and apparent sincerity, one can never tell 

 which half to believe. 



One of my friends, a most ardent and pertinacious 

 sportsman, determined on the possession of a bison's head, 

 and, hiring a guide, plunged into the mountain wilds which 

 separated the middle from the South Park. After several 

 days, fresh tracks were discovered. Turning their horses 

 loose on a little gorge-park, such as described, they started 

 on foot on the trail ; for all that day they toiled and 

 scrambled, with the utmost caution, now up, now down, 

 through deep and narrow gorges and pine thickets, over 

 bare and rocky crags ; sleeping where night overtook 

 them. Betimes next morning they pushed on the trail, 

 and about 11 o'clock, when both were exhausted and well- 

 nigh disheartened, their route was intercepted by a preci- 

 pice. Looking over they descried, on a projecting 

 ledge, several hundred feet below, a herd of about 

 twenty bison, lying down. The ledge was about 300 

 feet at widest, by probably 1,000 feet long. Its inner 

 boundary was the wall of rock on the top of which 

 they stood ; its outer appeared to be a sheer precipice 

 of at least 200 feet. This ledge was connected with 

 the slope of the mountain by a narrow neck. The wind 

 being right, the hunters succeeded in reaching this neck 

 unobserved. My friend selected a magnificent head, that 

 of a fine bull, young but full grown, and both fired. At 

 the report the bisons all ran to the far end of the ledge 

 and plunged over. 



