356 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
and whatever else one may; ask for explanations, not at 
the time, but by the camp fire, when the hunt is over ; keep 
cool, and when the critical moment come, if come it may, 
take as good an aim and shoot as quickly and as straight 
as he can. 
Elk and moose hunting, and yet more, cariboo hunting, 
partake all of the character -of still-hunting—except the 
pursuit of the former when it is made with greyhounds or 
deer hounds on the prairies—with the addition of difficulty 
and hardship of running many miles on snow-shoes in pur- 
suit of the vast and cumbrous animals over the frozen snow 
crust of the wintry wilderness, and camping out many nights 
in succession, under the inclement sky of the high northern 
latitudes, with the thermometer at 40 degrees, or more, 
below zero. 
Buffalo are sometimes stalked, but more usually ridden 
down by mere speed of horses without the aid of hounds, 
and shot in full career with carbine or rifle, by the hunter 
galloping side by side with them. The horsemanship is 
the great art to be attained, and skill is needful both to 
gallop at speed safely over the broken and interrupted 
surface of the wild plains, and to sit firmly and securely, 
when the horse swerves or sheers off, as he is taught to do, 
the instant the shot is fired, to avoid the sudden charge of 
the infuriate beast. 
The best place at which to fire in any large animal in 
motion, is immediately behind the bend of the shoulder, 
where the fore-arm is articulated with the shoulder-blade, 
at about two thirds the distance from the withers, measured 
downward to the elbow. If the ball, or charge of buck- 
