duced to allow him to proceed as he thought fit, even against
my better judgment. Blackie was taken out, led as before, tied by a long
line. I followed close behind him, to drive him if necessary. He did not
need much driving, but took the ice quite readily. We had got to the
centre of the river, when the surface suddenly bent downwards, and, to my
horror, the poor horse plunged deep into black, quick-running water! He
was not three yards in front of me when the ice broke. I recoiled
involuntarily from the black, seething chasm; the horse, though he
plunged suddenly down, never let his head under water, but kept swimming
manfully round and round the narrow hole, trying all he could to get
upon the ice. All his efforts were useless; a cruel wall of sharp ice
struck his knees as he tried to lift them on the surface, and the
current, running with immense velocity, repeatedly carried him back
underneath. As soon as the horse had broken through, the man who held
the rope let it go, and the leather line flew back about poor Blackie's
head. I got up almost to the edge of the hole, and stretching out took
hold of the line again; but that could do no good nor give him any
assistance in his struggles. I shall never forget the way the poor brute
looked at me--even now, as I write these lines, the whole scene comes
back in memory with all the vividness of a picture, and I feel again the
horrible sensation of being utterly unable, though almost within touching
distance, to give him help in his dire extremity and if ever dumb animal
spoke with unutterable eloquence, that horse called to me in his agony he
turned to me as to one from whom he had a right to expect assistance. I
could not stand the scene any longer. "Is there no help for him?" I cried
to the other men. "None whatever," was the reply; "the ice is dangerous
-all around."

Then I rushed back to the shore and up to the camp where my rifle lay,
then back again to the fatal spot where the poor beast still struggled
against his fate. As I raised the rifle he looked at me so imploringly
that my hand shook and trembled. Another instant, and the deadly bullet
crashed through his head, and, with one look never to be forgotten, he
went down under the cold, unpitying ice!

It may have been very foolish, perhaps, for poor Blackie was only a.
horse, but for all that I went back to camp, and, sitting down in the
snow, cried like a child. With my own hand I had taken my poor friend's
l