BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 413 



any display of that caution shown by her. There are others, 

 you think, still in the timber, and a gleam of brown moving 

 between the pine stems convinces you that you are right ; but 

 there is no doubt that this is the master bull of the herd, and 

 you fairly catch your breath at the sight of his vast antlers. 



As he stands there, sounding again his weird, unearthly 

 challenge, you realise that you are looking upon one of Nature's 

 masterpieces set in a fitting frame. When your finger presses 

 the trigger it will destroy the picture, and yet if you hesitate 

 much longer all your labour will be lost, and you will have no 

 royal trophy to remind you of this day, when the good rifle is 

 rusting with disuse and your limbs are stiff with old age. 



For my part, if I could get a camera which would do good 

 work at a hundred yards, I would rather press a button than 

 a trigger. However, like the rest of us, the bull must die some 

 day ; if you don't kill him there is a ' prominent citizen ' some- 

 where who made a pile in hardware, who will give a hundred 

 dollars for those splendid antlers, and the bar-tender in the 

 same city (a gentleman 'way up in the Order of the Elks') will 

 give five dollars apiece for his tushes, so that, after all, you 

 may as well fire the shot and take the spoils yourself. 



For a moment the woods ring with the report ; the other 

 elk vanish like the figures of a dream, but the bull stands 

 unflinching, as if he had neither heard the shot nor felt the 

 sting of the bullet. 



A little shiver creeps over him, and he seems to draw him- 

 self together. A moment he stands a royal figure amongst the 

 grey mosses of his native forest, above his head a haze of 

 golden aspen leaves, like drops of pale gold in a sea of deep 

 amethyst, and then he staggers and crashes down amongst the 

 giant pines lying dead like himself athwart the forest floor. 



The sport is over ; there is nothing left to do but butcher's 

 work ; the forest which a moment ago seemed full of moving 

 forms is empty and still again and are you quite sure that 

 there is no reproach in the silence ? It seems almost a pity 

 that sport must end in the death of such a noble victim. 



