Soon another cow and calf stepped out after them.

I did not wish to shoot, waiting for the appearance of the big bull which I knew was accompanying them.
So for several minutes I watched the great, clumsy, shaggy beasts, as all unconscious they grazed in the open glade.

Behind them rose the dark pines.

At the left of the glade the ground fell away to form the side of a chasm; down in its depths the cataracts foamed and thundered; beyond, the huge mountains towered, their crests crimsoned by the sinking sun.

Mixed with the eager excitement of the hunter was a certain half melancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, themselves part of the last remnant of a doomed and nearly vanished race.