Presently, above the scrape of my snowshoes, I heard the deer
coming, cr-r-runch! cr-r-runch! the heavy plunges growing shorter
and fainter, while behind the sounds an eager, whining trail-cry
grew into a fierce howl of canine exultation. Something was
telling me to hurry, hurry; that the big buck I had so often
hunted was in my power at last, and that, if I would square
accounts, I must beat the dogs, though they were nearer to him
now than I. The excitement of a new kind of hunt, a hunt to save,
not to kill, was tingling all over me when I circled a dense
thicket of firs with a rush, and there he lay, up to his
shoulders in the snow before me.

He had taken his last jump. The splendid strength which had
carried him so far was spent now to the last ounce. He lay
resting easily in the snow, his head outstretched on the crust
before him, awaiting the tragedy that had followed him for years,
by lake and clearing and winter yard, and that burst out behind
him now with a cry to make one's nerves shudder. The glory of his
antlers was gone; he had dropped them months before; but the
mighty shoulders and sinewy neck and perfect head showed how
well, how grandly he had deserved my hunting.

He threw up his head as I burst out upon him from an utterly
unexpected quarter--the very thing that I had so often tried to
do, in vain, in the old glorious days. "Hast thou found me, O
mine enemy? Well, here am I." That is what his eyes, great, sad,
accusing eyes, were saying as he laid his head down on the snow
again, quiet as an Indian at the torture, too proud to struggle
where nothing was to be gained but pity or derision.