SPORT AND TRAVEL 203 



I let him get a little past me, and then put one of 

 Holland's peg bullets just behind his shoulder, low 

 down. I saw by the convulsive rush forwards that 

 he made, that he was struck through the heart, but 

 I did not expect so large an animal to collapse so 

 quickly. He had not gone twenty paces after being 

 hit, when he fell suddenly right on to the prostrate 

 stem of a large tree, which did not, however, stop him, 

 as the impetus of his fall carried him over it, and he 

 then went sliding at a terrific pace down the steep 

 snow slope below, and disappeared from sight almost 

 immediately. 



Following as rapidly as possible, we found that he 

 had slid down the steep snow slope for about fifty 

 yards without coming against any tree that might have 

 brought him up, and then gone down an almost pre- 

 cipitous rocky gully. Standing at the top of this and 

 looking downwards, my heart died (as the Kafirs say) 

 for I did not think it possible that a dead animal 

 could fall down such a place without smashing his 

 horns all to pieces. The same thought struck Gra- 

 ham, too, for he remarked, " Well ! I be doggoned ; 

 he won't have much horns on him when he gets to 

 the bottom of that." The gully down which he had 

 slid was very rocky and so steep that we had the 

 greatest difficulty in climbing down it. We ulti- 

 mately found the dead wapiti at the bottom of it, 

 quite five hundred feet below the spot where he had 

 fallen dead and commenced his slide. Strange to 



