ROCKIES IN SEPTEMBER 131 



invariably pointing westward. The yearly move to their 

 winter feeding-grounds was obviously commencing, and 

 from it not half of them would ever return. The Indians 

 — the most reckless and unscrupulous of all hide-hunters, 

 yet virtually licensed, and certainly seldom if ever inter- 

 fered with, by the United States Government, albeit the 

 various States strive hard to protect their game by sternly 

 forbidding white men to slaughter for market — the Indians 

 would take care of that, while the settlers of the lower 

 slopes would naturally want also their stock of meat for 

 the winter months. 



" Snakes ! There's a daisy ! " whispered Mat fiercely 

 and suddenly, his eyes either quicker than mine, or 

 more accustomed to discriminate objects in thick covert. 

 " Don't you see him, Cap'n, beyond the big pine ? There, 

 right sideways on ! " But for the life of me I couldn't see 

 the buck amid the shades and shadows of trees and grass, 

 till he browsed on and fairly turned his back, to stroll 

 up the lower ground beyond a slight ravine. The size of 

 his body and the spread of his horns were plain enough 

 at a glance, and he was not more than sixty yards away. 

 So I took the shot at the moment, firing down upon his 

 broad back as he rose the hillside. The bullet struck him 

 too far back, but near the spine, and crippled his off hind- 

 quarter. " We shall have him ! " cried Mat, as the big 

 fellow set off through the more open timber, and dis- 

 appeared into a clump of green spruce. '' Let him go ! 

 He'll lie down in a minute." 



But without a dog, and in covert so varied, here and 

 there so dense, I felt by no means disposed to let him out 

 of sight ; so rode sharply to the point at which he had dis- 

 appeared, thence to mark his going away below at a strong, 

 lumbering gallop. Through grass and weeds saddle-high, 

 among the trees and rocks, we dashed after him — the 

 impulse and excitement of chase urging onward, in full 

 fox-hunting vein. I carried only one spur, of a cumbrous, 

 cowboy pattern, but this I rattled hard and constantly 

 against George's roan ribs, till he entered keenly into the 

 delight of the business and we gained steadily on the big 

 buck. Finding himself pursued, the latter kept rigidly to 



