It is perfectly wonderful to see an animal of near six hundred pounds' weight bounding down a hillside, over rocks and ruts and every conceivable difficulty of ground, at a pace which will completely distance the best hound; and even at this desperate speed, the elk will never make a false step; sure-footed as a goat, he will still fly on through bogs, ravines, tangled jungles and rocky rivers, ever certain of his footing.
The foregoing description of an elk-hunt will give the reader a good idea of the power of this animal in stemming rapids and climbing dangerous precipices; but even an elk is not proof against the dangers of Fort M'Donald river, an example of which we had on the following morning.
The hounds found a doe who broke cover close to me in a small patina and made straight running for the river.

She had no sooner reached it than I beard her cry out, and as she was closely followed I thought she was seized.

However, the whole pack shortly returned, evidently thrown out, and I began to abuse them pretty roundly, thinking that they had lost their game in the river.

So they had, but in an excusable manner; the poor doe had been washed down a rapid, and had broken her thigh.

We found her dead under a hollow rock in the middle of the river.
Here we had a fine exemplification of the danger of the mysterious pools.
While I was opening the elk, with the pack all round me licking their lips in expectation, old "Madcap" was jostled by one of the greyhounds, and slipped into a basin among the rocks, which formed an edge of about two feet above the surface.
The opposite side of the pool was hemmed in by rocks about six feet high, and the direction of the under-current was at once shown by poor old "Madcap" being swept up against this high wall of rock, where she remained paddling with all her might in an upright position.
I saw the poor beast would be sucked under, and yet I could not save her.