e prepared
for him. There he lay in the iron grasp of all four traps, perfectly
helpless, and all around him were numerous tracks showing how the cattle
had gathered about him to insult the fallen despot, without daring
to approach within his reach. For two days and two nights he had lain
there, and now was worn out with struggling. Yet, when I went near him,
he rose up with bristling mane and raised his voice, and for the last
time made the canyon reverberate with his deep bass roar, a call for
help, the muster call of his band. But there was none to answer him,
and, left alone in his extremity, he whirled about with all his strength
and made a desperate effort to get at me. All in vain, each trap was a
dead drag of over three hundred pounds, and in their relentless fourfold
grasp, with great steel jaws on every foot, and the heavy logs and
chains all entangled together, he was absolutely powerless. How his
huge ivory tusks did grind on those cruel chains, and when I ventured to
touch him with my rifle-barrel he left grooves on it which are there to
this day. His eyes glared green with hate and fury, and his jaws
snapped with a hollow 'chop,' as he vainly endeavored to reach me and my
trembling horse. But he was worn out with hunger and struggling and loss
of blood, and he soon sank exhausted to the ground.

Something like compunction came over me, as I prepared to deal out to
him that which so many had suffered at his hands.

"Grand old outlaw, hero of a thousand lawless raids, in a few minutes
you will be but a great load of carrion. It cannot be otherwise." Then I
swung my lasso and sent it whistling over his head. But not so fast; he
was yet far from being subdued, and before the supple coils had fallen
on his neck he seized the noose and, with one fierce chop, cut through
its hard thick strands, and dropped it in two pieces at his feet.

Of course I had my rifle as a last resource, but I did not wish to spoil
his royal hide, so I galloped back to the camp and returned with a cowboy
and a fresh lasso. We threw to our victim a stick of wood which he
seized in his teeth, and before he could relinquish it our lassoes
whistled through the air and tightened on his neck.

Yet before the light had died from his fierce eyes, I cried, "Stay,
we will not kill him; let us take him alive to the camp." He was so
completely powerless now that it was easy to put a stout stick through
his mouth, behind his tusks, and then lash