rd that
the Indians used sometimes to try running a deer down afoot in the old
days; here was the chance to try a new experience. It was fearfully hard
traveling without snowshoes, to be sure; but that seemed only to even-up
chances fairly with the deer. At the thought I ran on, giving no
heed when the quarry jumped again just ahead of me, but pushing them
steadily, mile after mile, till I realized with a thrill that I was
gaining rapidly, that their pauses grew more and more frequent, and I
had constant glimpses of deer ahead among the trees--never of the big
buck, but of the two does, who were struggling desperately to follow
their leader as he kept well ahead of them breaking the way. Then
realizing, I think, that he was followed by strength rather than by
skill or cunning, the noble old fellow tried a last trick, which came
near being the end of my hunting altogether.

The trail turned suddenly to a high open ridge with scattered thickets
here and there. As they labored up the slope I had the does in plain
sight. On top the snow was light, and they bounded ahead with fresh
strength. The trail led straight along the edge of a cliff, beyond which
the deer had vanished. They had stopped running here; I noticed with
amazement that they had walked with quick short steps across the open.
Eager for a sight of the buck I saw only the thin powdering of snow;
I forgot the glare ice that covered the rock beneath. The deer's sharp
hoofs had clung to the very edge securely. My heedless feet had barely
struck the rock when they slipped and I shot over the cliff, thirty feet
to the rocks below. Even as I fell and the rifle flew from my grasp, I
heard the buck's loud whistle from the thicket where he was watching me,
and then the heavy plunge of the deer as they jumped away.

A great drift at the foot of the cliff saved me. I picked myself up,
fearfully bruised but with nothing broken, found my rifle and limped
away four miles through the woods to the road, thinking as I went that
I was well served for having delivered the deer "from the power of the
dog," only to take advantage of their long run to secure a head that my
skill had failed to win. I wondered, with an extra twinge in my limp,
whether I had saved Old Wally by taking the chase out of his hands
unceremoniously. Above all, I wondered--and here I would gladly follow
another trail over the same ground--whether the noble beast, grown weary
with running, his splendid strengt