A GAZELLE HUNT. 
341 
how it was that he had missed overtaking the largest of the 
gazelles, which was the one he had in his eye all along. He 
had kept that gazelle in his eye from the very beginning, and 
was gaining on it rapidly, when it suddenly disappeared ; it 
must have perceived that it was quite useless to run away 
from him any longer, and hastily concealed itself in a hole till 
he passed by. The tall Southerner was of opinion that the 
whole difficulty was owing to the want of stomach in his iron- 
gray ; which was the cause of the saddle slipping back, so as 
to prevent him from taking good aim. He thought that had 
the saddle remained in its proper place, he could have stead¬ 
ied himself by the stirrups ; instead of which, it required most 
of his attention to. keep his legs tied together underneath. 
However, he believed that he had wounded one of the ga¬ 
zelles very severely, for he saw it leap more than thirty feet 
when he fired. 
Yusef, during this conversation, lost much of his dejected 
expression of countenance; and when the tall Southerner 
spoke of having wounded a gazelle, he was no longer able to 
suppress his enthusiasm. He declared, in the most emphatic 
manner, that he had wounded two, one of which he had no 
doubt dropped dead in five minutes after, for he had broken 
one of its hind-legs, and crippled both the fore-legs, in such a 
manner that it was utterly impossible for it to run more than 
a quarter of a mile farther. The other was not so badly 
■wounded, having only lost its eyes by a slug (he knew that 
the eyes were destroyed by the way it ran); and there was 
some probability of its living, but it could never see where it 
was going. He would have gone after the dead one, and, in 
fact, did go some distance after it, but— 
Here Yusef stopped. Had he been struck with lightning 
he could not have stopped more suddenly, or more unaccount¬ 
ably to himself. It was well for him that he was not thrown 
headlong over his horse. The cause of the interruption was 
this : being a little too far behind to hear distinctly all he 
said, I had thoughtlessly ridden up rather near ; and precisely 
at the most interesting point (for I felt exceedingly curious to 
know why the dead gazelle was left running about with one 
