32 AMERICAN GAME. 
headlong down the deceitful breeze upon the treacher- 
ous rifle. 
Of all wood-craft, none is so difficult, none requires so 
rare a combination as this, of quickness of sight, wariness 
of tread, very instinct of the craft, and perfection of 
judgment. When resorted to, and performed to the ad- 
mniration even of woddmen, it does not succeed once in a 
hundred times—therefore not by one man in a thousand 
is it ever resorted to at all, and by him, rather in the 
wantonness of wood-craft, and by way of boastful experi- 
ment, than with any hope, much less expectation of suc- 
cess. ay 
For once, in my illustration, the trick has been played, 
and the game wins—the whoop is pealing on the wind 
beyond the dark, sheltering pines and hemlocks—the 
herd is scattered to the four winds of heaven—but the 
monarch of the wilderness, the prime bull of the herd, 
bears down in his headlong terror full on the ambushed 
rifle. 
Lo! with how brave a bound he clears that prostrate 
log. But the keen eye of the woodman is upon him; 
another moment, and it shall glare along the deadly 
rifle; the sharp, short crack shall awake the echoes of 
the forest, and ere they shall have subsided into silence, 
the pride of the woods shall have gasped out his last 
sigh on the gory green-sward. 
But this you will say is fancy—scarcely fact. Be it 
so. What follows shall be fact, not fancy. For I shall 
