knowledge as
being truly elevating and noble, while the pursuit of game was, to say
the least of it, a species of pleasure more suited to the tastes and
condition of the savage than of the civilised man.

To this Peterkin replied--having made a preliminary statement to the
effect that I was a humbug--that a man's pluck was brought out and his
nerves improved by the noble art of hunting, which was beautifully
scientific in its details, and which had the effect of causing a man to
act like a man and look like a man--not like a woman or a nincompoop, as
was too often the case with scientific men.

Hereupon Jack announced it as his opinion that we were both wrong and
both right; which elicited a cry of "Bravo!" from Peterkin. "For," said
Jack, "what would the naturalist do without the hunter? His museums
would be almost empty and his knowledge would be extremely limited. On
the other hand, if there were no naturalists, the hunter--instead of
being the hero who dares every imaginable species of danger, in order to
procure specimens and furnish information that will add to the sum of
human knowledge--would degenerate into the mere butcher, who supplies
himself and his men with meat; or into the semi-murderer, who delights
in shedding the blood of inferior animals. The fact is, that the
naturalist and the hunter are indispensably necessary to each
other--`both are best,' to use an old expression; and when both are
combined in one, as in the case of the great American ornithologist
Audubon, that is best of all."

"Betterer than both," suggested Peterkin.

But to return from this digression.

In less than quarter of an hour we gained a position well to leeward of
the buffalo, which grazed quietly near the edge of the bushes, little
dreaming of the enemies who were so cautiously approaching to work its
destruction.

"Keep well in rear of me, Ralph," said Peterkin, as we halted behind a
bush to examine our rifles. "I'll creep as near to him as I can, and if
by any chance I should not kill him at the first shot, do you run up and
hand me your gun."

Without waiting for a reply, my companion threw himself on his breast,
and began to creep over the plain like a snake in the grass. He did
this so well and so patiently that he reached to within forty yards of
the bull without being discovered. Then he ceased to advance, and I saw
his head and shoulders slowly emerge from among the grass, and presently
his rifle appeared