To Mountain Tarn 



afterward. We would kill, not behind doors, but 

 in the open, and under the sky. 



Our wit was pitted against the wit of the 

 quarry. We met wile with wile ambushed, 

 crawled, sought the alliance of the wind, of the 

 sympathetic shading of the ground until we came 

 within distance. We would even choose our 

 body-covering to aid in concealment, as the hair 

 or fur is toned by nature. We would masquerade 

 as wild animals, as carnivores over against the 

 feeding ungulates. There is nothing original in 

 all this. It is a case of reversion, a calling of the 

 underlying wild instincts to the surface. 



An element of fair play brightens the series of 

 episodes. We give the deer a chance for its life, 

 which is more than we do for the cattle, only we 

 see that it does not get away, as it might do in a 

 truly wild scene, and from its natural enemies. 

 This interval between the grazing and the 

 gralloching, between appetite and dinner, we 

 call sport. It is a pretty name for a certain 

 usurpation of the methods of the animals we 

 have first disinherited. As in other cases, we 

 adopt without acknowledgment. We deny the 

 name to the manoeuvres we copy. We think that 

 sport is the prerogative of man, who has a soul. 

 It is an afterthought. What matter? They are 

 alike. The same wild instincts are at work, with 

 the same pleasure in their exercise. 



I have no quarrel with this copy. I like heroics, 



