he pack was so indistinct that my ear could barely
catch it, when suddenly a gust of wind from that direction brought down
a chorus of voices that there was no mistaking: louder and louder the
music became; the elk had turned, and was coming down the hill-side at
a slapping pace. The jungle crashed as he came rushing through the
yielding branches. Out he came, breaking cover in fine style, and away
he dashed over the open country. He was a noble buck, and had got a
long start; not a single hound had yet appeared, but I heard them
coming through the jungle in full cry. Down the side of the hill he came
straight to the pool beneath my feet. Yoick to him! Hark forward to him!
and I gave a view halloa till my lungs had well-nigh cracked. I had lost
sight of him, as he had taken to water in the pool within the jungle.

One more halloa! and out came the gallant old fellow Smut from the
jungle, on the exact line that the elk had taken. On he came, bounding
along the rough side of the hill like a lion, followed by only two
dogs--Dan, a pointer (since killed by a leopard), and Cato, a young dog
who had never yet seen an elk. The remainder of the pack had taken
after a doe that had crossed the scent, and they were now running in
a different direction. I now imagined that the elk had gone down the
ravine to the lower plains by some run that might exist along the edge
of the cliff, and accordingly I started off along a deer-path through
the jungle, to arrive at the lower plains by the shortest road that I
could make.

Hardly had I run a hundred yards, when I heard the ringing of the bay
and the deep voice of Smut, mingled with the roar of the waterfall, to
which I had been running parallel. Instantly changing my course, I was
in a few moments on the bank of the river just above the fall. There
stood the buck at bay in a large pool about three feet deep, where the
dogs could only advance by swimming. Upon my jumping into the pool, he
broke his bay, and, dashing through the dogs, he appeared to leap over
the verge of the cataract, but in reality he took to a deer-path
which skirted the steep side of the wooded precipice. So steep was the
inclination that I could only follow on his track by clinging to the
stems of the trees. The roar of the waterfall, now only a few feet on my
right hand, completely overpowered the voices of the dogs wherever they
might be, and I carefully commenced a perilous descent by the side of
the fall, knowin