they could keep him in
view. We started one of these singers of the plains, and at first he set
off trusting to his legs, but the greyhounds were after him, and when he
saw his long start shrinking so fearfully fast he knew that his legs
could not save him, that now was the time for wits to enter the game.
And this entry he made quickly and successfully by dropping out of sight
down a brushy canyon, so the greyhounds saw him no more.

Then they were baffled by Prairie-dogs which dodged down out of reach
and hawks which rose up out of reach, and still we rode, till, rounding
a little knoll near a drinking place, we came suddenly on a mother
Blacktail and her two fawns. All three swung their big ears and eyes
into full bearing on us, and we reined our horses and tried to check our
dogs, hoping they had not seen the quarry that we did not wish to harm.
But Bran the leader gave a yelp, then leaping high over the sage,
directed all the rest, and in a flash it was a life and death race.

Again and frantically the elder Eaton yelled "Come back!" and his
brother tried to cut across and intercept the hounds. But a creature
that runs away is an irresistible bait to a greyhound, and the chase
across the sage-covered flat was on, with every nerve and tendon
strained.

[Illustration: X. Blacktail Family
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]

Away went the Blacktail, bounding, bounding at that famous beautiful,
birdlike, soaring pace, mother and young tapping the ground and sailing
to land, and tap and sail again. And away went the greyhounds, low
coursing, outstretched, bounding like bolts from a crossbow, curving but
little and dropping only to be shot again. They were straining hard; the
Blacktail seemed to be going more easily, far more beautifully. But
alas! they were losing time. The greyhounds were closing; in vain we
yelled at them. We spurred our horses, hoping to cut them off, hoping to
stop the ugly, lawless tragedy. But the greyhounds were frantic now. The
distance between Bran and the hindmost fawn was not forty feet. Then
Eaton drew his revolver and fired shots over the greyhounds' heads,
hoping to scare them into submission, but they seemed to draw fresh
stimulus from each report, and yelped and bounded faster. A little more
and the end would be. Then we saw a touching sight. The hindmost fawn
let out a feeble bleat of distress, and the mother, heeding, dropped
back between. It looked like choosing death, for now she had not twe