Upon me, and I sat and wept
An hour or so like winking.’
“Erickson, my pop first. I’ll forego the tears. Stalk them up to windward.”
The animals had not noticed our vicinity, although grazing and leisurely approaching us. We finally squatted behind a rock, and just a half hour later, as they reached the edge of the mimic field we fired. Hopkins stretched out the bull; it sank majestically to its knees, its head drooped, something like a groan escaped its throat, and it fell sideways. I was not so fortunate, nor skillful. I wounded one of the cows, but there was no attempt at escape. The herd pressed together, stamping a little but almost motionless, as if paralyzed with terror, or robbed of volition by curiosity. Hopkins let fly again and my wounded cow glided to the ground. My second shot was fatal, and another helpless brute succumbed. Then as if stricken with a sudden consciousness of their danger, the rest of the herd trotted off, spared further decimation. Our larder would be well replenished, and we both knew now, with an unshaken conviction, that we were in a land of plenty.
“We should worry!” sniffed Hopkins sententiously. When we reached our quarry I was amazed to note the peculiar narrowness and elevation of the horns of the bull, and the dirty gray maculations on the black hair of the pelage.
“A new species, Spruce,” I exclaimed.
“Well then,” he replied, “here’s where the Professor rings up the curtain on the textbooks, and—Say Alfred!—as I had first blood, and bagged the bull, why not hand it out as Bos hopkinsi?”
“By all means,” I assented. When we got back, and we did not return empty handed we found Goritz and the Professor. They looked a little dispirited but our report put such a pleasant aspect on things that they quickly recovered. They had found nothing, but that was due to the pertinacity of the Professor in carrying Goritz off on a tour of investigation. They had crossed the tableland and had threaded their way half across the foothills, until they met the frowning crags skirting the mountain terrain. These were seamed with waterfalls pouring into some encircling canon below them, which again formed a channel for the escape of the gathered floods, but whither they went was undetermined. It was evident that the water of the streams came from the melting snowbanks lingering higher up on the mountains, and that the region was one of very heavy precipitation.
Goritz insisted on bringing in the meat, and indeed our mouths watered for a juicy steak. The dogs were fed, and these insatiable beasts ravenously devoured the pieces we threw to them, until Goritz, fearing their consequent lethargy, drove them off half frantic, harnessed them, and accompanied by me took the sledge to our depot; returned with the carcasses and skins and ushered in a memorable night, lit by the futile rivalry of sun and moon.
There was first our supper when the Captain permitted a relaxation of his restriction, and the Professor plunged into the resources of our slender commissariat with a most reprehensible abandon. I believe we washed down our steak with Eulenthaler, a few bottles of which had still survived our perils. Then there was the Professor’s ecstasy over the new species of Bos, for such it was, and his delighted acceptance of Hopkins’ patronymic for its technical name. And then—our Council of War; war on the Unknown, the Mysteries of this new land, the perils before us, and those that might await us beyond those slumbering virginal crests, from whose pinnacles even now the clustering genii of the realm watched our intrusion with scorn and hatred!