They are all right, thank goodness, they were
saved. I saw them struggling up the steep bank, through the same
lemon grass, which had for a moment obscured their fate. They
were thoroughly exhausted and half drowned.
In the mean time, the elk had manfully breasted the rapids,
carefully choosing the shallow places; and the whole pack, being
mad with excitement, had plunged into the waters regardless of
the danger. I thought every hound would have been lost. For an
instant they looked like a flock of ducks, but a few moments
afterward they were scattered in the boiling eddies, hurrying
with fatal speed toward the dreadful cataract. Poor "Phrenzy!"
round she spun in the giddy vortex; nearer and nearer she
approached the verge - her struggles were unavailing - over she
went, and was of course never heard of afterward.
This was a terrible style of hunting; rather too much so to be
pleasant. I clambered down to the edge of the river just in time
to see the elk climbing, as nimbly as a cat up the precipitous
bank on the opposite side, threading his way at a slow walk under
the overhanging rocks, and scrambling up the steep mountain with
a long string of hounds at his heels in single file. "Valiant,"
"Tiptoe" and "Ploughboy" were close to him, and I counted the
other hounds in the line, fully expecting to miss half of them.
