378 TKAVEL, ADVENTUKE, AND SPOET. 



Already glorying in the prize, 

 Measured his antlers with his eyes." 



But, strange to relate, we reached the fall without 

 a sign of our quarry. Tom tells yarns about deer in 

 Michigan seeking shelter under a fall's cataract, and 

 recites time and place, but I don't " catch on," as they 

 say. There -were certainly no tracks on my side of 

 the bank, so I suggest that Tom may have missed it 

 on his side. This turned out to be the case some 

 200 yards before reaching the falls, and we again get 

 on the trail. Every moment we expect to come up 

 with the prize, as by every known precedent he ought 

 to have lain down long before this. Xot a bit of it, 

 though : his tracks show that he is going stronger at 

 every stride, with no idea of slowing down. Appear- 

 ances are decidedly bad for us : the snow is now 

 much deeper, we must be quite ten miles from camp, 

 and it is past sundown, and I have to own reluctantly 

 we "no can catchee." Tom's theory of the "crease 

 shot " must have been correct : at least we decided 

 that it was over our supper, when we at last got back 

 to camp, wet, hungry, and " dog-tired." 



Tom explained that by a " crease " shot an animal 

 may be " knocked silly," or stunned momentarily, 

 and yet be none the worse for the operation. This 

 " creasing " process one often hears of in dealing with 

 wild bronchos by cowboys, and it may undoubtedly 

 happen to a deer. That was my first experience of 

 a " crease shot," and I had no ambition to renew it. 



