The elk stood upon the brink of the swollen torrent; he could not
retreat, as the wall of rock was behind him, with the small
step-like path by which he had descended; this was now occupied
by the yelling pack.
The hounds knew the danger of the place; but the buck, accustomed
to these haunts from his birth, suddenly leapt across the boiling
rapids, and springing from rock to rock along the verge of the
cataract, he gained the opposite side. Here he had mistaken his
landing-place, as a shelving rock, upon which he had alighted,
was so steep that he could not retain his footing, and he
gradually slid down toward the river.
At this moment, to my horror, both "Bran" and Lucifer" dashed
across the torrent, and bounding from rock to rock, they sprung
at the already tottering elk, and in another moment both he and
they rolled over in a confused mass into the boiling torrent.
One more instant and they reappeared, the buck gallantly stemming
the current, which his great length of limb and weight enabled
him to do; the dogs, overwhelmed in the foam of the rapids, were
swept down toward the fall, in spite of their frantic exertions
to gain the bank.
They were not fifteen feet from the edge of the fall, and I saw
them spun round and round in the whirlpools being hurried toward
certain destruction.
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