286 WILD SCENES AND 'WILD HUNTERS. 



mail on, you know not wHther. My game on this day proved 

 to be much more long--winded and powerful than usual, and I 

 had, as the consequence, a tremendous race of it before I 

 began to gain very rapidly upon its flight. At length the 

 buck began to make leaps a little less long and high, and my 

 horse, by this time thoroughly heated in the run, to snort 

 with eagerness as he let out an additional link or two of 

 speed. I closed rapidly with the quarry, and loosened my 

 holsters for the shot which was to close the scene. Now my 

 horse, with ears laid back, closes up alongside, and with 

 trembling haste the pistol is snatched from the holster. With 

 all its desperate speed we almost touch the hair with the 

 muzzle before we fire — ^between the shoulders — and it is down ! 

 — tumbling, in the impulse of its flight, forward with broken 

 neck bent beneath the body. 



It is over ! We are silent and still. The bloody work is 

 finished, and I look around for the first time to see where I 

 am, or what is in sight. I am amongst a wild Archipelago 

 of islands, or " motts" of timber, with long, irregular vistas 

 stretching between them in all directions. My victim lies at 

 my feet quiet enough now. The strong breeze cools my 

 heated forehead. The hush is profound at first, for every 

 voice of nature has been frightened into silence by the violent 

 scene which had just occurred to desecrate a peaceful home ; 

 but gradually, before my confused sense has time to realize 

 the scene, the rap, rap, rapping of a wood-pecker's hammer 

 stole timidly out from the nearest " mott," and then sound 

 after sound, resumed in the same low key, hesitated forth 

 from bird and insect, showing that Nature was yet alive, 

 although just now so appalled. 



I gazed around — with something of the dim confused per- 

 ception of one awakening from the deep sleep of troubled dream 

 — into the lengthening vistas stretching by uncertain glimpses 

 into remotest distance — when gradually the overwhelming rea- 

 lization of the vastness came upon me, and then the shudder- 



