SPORT AND TRAVEL 189 



of blood, I could only conclude that I had made a 

 clean miss. I have made many bad shots in my time, 

 but never, I think, quite so bad a one as this. In 

 fact, it was an unaccountably bad shot, as I was sit- 

 ting down and quite cool and steady as far as I 

 know. A Mannlicher bullet sometimes goes wrong, 

 I am told, owing to the nickel coating parting from 

 the lead core as it leaves the muzzle of the rifle. If 

 something of this sort did not happen, I certainly 

 made a record bad shot on this occasion. I must 

 say I felt very sore about it, though the wapiti I had 

 failed to kill was, I knew, not a very fine one. Jinks 

 thought he was about a three-year-old bull, and said 

 his head would not have been worth carrying to 

 camp, an assertion which, though comforting in 

 some ways, did not make me feel any better satisfied 

 with my bad shooting. 



Besides this remarkably easy shot at a young 

 wapiti bull, I got another difficult running shot at 

 what I think was a very fine one. Graham and I 

 had been tracking a small herd of six or seven cows 

 accompanied by a bull as we knew from the hoof- 

 prints for many hours, when on reaching the top of 

 a rise which we had ascended amongst thick-growing 

 pine-trees, we came suddenly to the edge of an open 

 piece of ground, which sloped steeply down to where 

 it again met the forest some one hundred and fifty 

 yards below. This piece of ground was covered with 

 grass, but quite devoid of trees or bushes. Imme- 



