158 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



ing antlers stood proudly out from his head, while his 

 wliole form was limned, as if by art, against the steep hill- 

 side at the foot of which he stood. I could hardly trust my 

 eyes; under all the circumstances, it actually seemed an 

 illusion. I raised my rifle slowly, aimed for his heart, and 

 fired. He made a wheel of twenty feet up the steep hill- 

 side, and was out of sight. 



Could it be ? At a hundred yards, dead-still, and miss 

 an animal like that! And I felt like kicking myself, as I 

 went forward, to think I must fall into my old training of 

 early life, and aim behind the shoulder, instead of for the 

 shoulder itself, and dropping him where he stood. But 

 there was blood where he wheeled, and hair, as if puffed 

 out on the o^jposite side. Courage! it was not a miss, then; 

 I may get him yet. I sent Dash on his trail. With a rush 

 he sprang up the hill-side, and when I had clambered up, 

 he too was out of sight; Deer and dog both gone! Getting 

 breath, I turned to the left, and there, in a little gully, lay 

 dead my noble game, with my dog gnawing into his back, 

 in his instinct to fetch! I have Elk-skins and Deer-skins 

 which are thus marked and bare. 



The great doe was noble; but this is princely! 'No such 

 creature, save a bull Elk, had ever fallen to my rifle. I 

 bled him as he lay; then took him by the massive horns 

 and slid him down the steep incline, to draw him at better 

 advantage at the foot. The bullet had gone directly through 

 his heart; he had used the one inhalation in his lungs, the 

 one pulsation of his blood, for the burst up the hillock, 

 then had rolled, dead, into the hollow. 



My friend, hearing my shot, came up. He looked at the 

 mighty game in astonishment. 



"Mr. C ," he said, " I have lived in this valley fifteen 



years, and that is the biggest Deer I have ever seen! He will 

 weigh a good three hundred pounds when he is drawn." 



We gralloched him, secured him for the night, and, sure 

 enough, were back at the tent as the sun was dipping 

 below the horizon. To this day, it seems to me as if I had 

 shot a Deer in a street or a pasture. 



