It is not too much to say that a good Indian hunter can anticipate every instinct of the animal he is in quest of.
We have seen in the present instance how completely the Sioux had forced the herd of wapiti to take the upper level. This he had achieved by knowing exactly where they would run upon being first disturbed, and then placing himself in such a position that they were enabled to scent his presence before they could see that he meant to follow them. By this means he caused them to abandon the partly wooded country before they had become thoroughly frightened by a closer attack.
Under the different conditions of suspicion, fear, and absolute danger, wild animals, like human creatures, show widely different tactics. It is these finer distinctions of habit and emotion that the red man has so thoroughly mastered, and it is this knowledge that enables him almost invariably to outwit the keenest sense of animal cunning.
In most of the wisdom of civilized man he is only a child. His perceptions of things relating to social or political life are bounded by narrow limits. But in the work of the wilderness, in all things that relate to the conquest of savage nature, be it grizzly bear, foaming rapid, or long stretch of icy solitude, he is all unmatched in skill, in daring, and in knowledge.
But while we have been speaking thus of Indian skill in the chase, our stag has been nearing with rapid strides the sand-hills of his refuge.
We had now drawn closer to each other in the pursuit, and it seemed that hunters and hunted were straining their every nerve, the one to attain, the other to prevent, the gaining of this refuge.
I had thought that the horse ridden by the Sioux had been going at its utmost speed. But in this I was mistaken, as the next instant proved.
All at once he shot forward, laying himself out over the prairie as I had never before seen any horse do.
He was soon close upon the flying footsteps of the stag, which now, finding himself almost outpaced, broke from his long-held steady trot into a short and laboured gallop, while his great antlers moved from side to side, as he watched over his flanks the progress of his pursuer.