196 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



to bear a man on snow shoes, or his dog, and yet will let in 

 the poor animal at every jump as deep as it can sink. Here 

 it is like slaughtering sheep in a pen when hunters attack a 

 "yard" of deer or moose, but in Kentucky the case is very 

 different. The snow seldom or never falls deeper than two 

 feet, and most frequently does not last a week. It never 

 crusts sufficiently to impede, materially, the progress of large 

 game, and all the sport is therefore confined to within the 

 first few days ; and the principal, if not only advantage 

 the hunter gains, consisting in the increased facility with 

 which the game is traced, either by himself or by the noses 

 of his hounds. This makes the sport intensely exciting, for 

 you sometimes pursue a single herd or sole animal for twenty 

 miles before you get a shot; but as you are sure to get a 

 glimpse of them, and hear their whistling snort of defiance 

 as they bound on again every half hour or so, you are kept 

 in a constant state of excitement, and beguiled, without heed- 

 ing, over miles and miles that would otherwise have been 

 weary enough to you. It is only when the coveted achievement 

 has been really accomplished, and you have proudly thrown 

 your noble quarry across the saddle, that you begin to realize 

 fatigue in satiety, and self-reproach in the fatigue, as with 

 aching limbs you turn your wearied horse through the strange, 

 darkening woods towards the distant camp. Now the chill 

 night wind whistles through the gnarled boughs, dashes the 

 frozen snow in fine, sifted, searching particles into your face 

 and bosom ; now your hot blood chills and your fiery pulse 

 sinks ; the cutting nor'-wester searches the very " marrow of 

 annoy;" and with sinking heart and shivering limbs, its very 

 shadow as the owl sails by, causes your teeth to chatter, and 

 its sudden hoot makes you almost leap from the saddle in 

 nervous affright. Now, as the dreary way lengthens before 

 you, the cheerful light of the solitary camp-fire seems far, far 

 away, and an almost infinite distance of bog and bluff, of 

 crag, ravine and tangled wood, seems stretched between you 



