40 RUSTLINGS IN THE ROCKIES. 



He was too badly hurt to run far, but . I gave him another 

 broadsider, and he started to run directly away from me. 

 Then I gave him two in the rump. He turned to right 

 again, and another leaden bolt caught him in the shoulder, 

 another through the lungs, and another through the lower 

 jaw, making eight in all. Then he came to bay again, 

 and I walked up to within twenty paces of him. It was 

 useless to add to his already too great suffering ; he could go 

 no farther. He looked at me, shook his massive head, 

 pawed the ground, and his eyes gleamed like balls of fire. 

 He would have charged me, but his strength was too far 

 gone. 



Then was enacted the sublimest death-scene I ever wit- 

 nessed. He trembled all over. He inhaled until his sides 

 expanded far beyond their natural size, he blew this vast 

 volume of air from his nostrils in clouds of steam, accom- 

 panied by a noise like the exhaust of a steam engine. He 

 pawed up the earth again, shook his head, then placed his 

 antlers to the ground, and threw his weight upon them as if 

 giving the death thrust to some prostrate antagonist. In this 

 effort he forced his body into the air until his feet cleared the 

 ground, he poised a moment, fell with a heavy thud on his 

 side, blew the steam and blood from his nostrils again, and 

 the great monster was dead ! Talk about great acting. I 

 have seen great actors in their greatest death scenes, but never 

 saw so grand, so awe-inspiring a death as this real death of 

 the Monarch of the Rockies. 



I sat down and gazed for twenty minutes upon his lifeless 

 form, and bitterly did I reproach myself for bringing to an 

 untimely end so noble, so majestic an animal. What a strange 

 passion it is that leads men to such slaughter of innocent 

 creatures, and what a strange fancy it is that leads them to 

 think such slaughter sport ! It is too deep a problem for my 



