It was perhaps three hours later when his quick eye caught a slight movement amid the tree trunks ahead. Next moment a huge yellow-brown bulk heaved upward from the ground, a giant bull elk with vast, wide-spreading antlers.
Almayne stood rigid with amazement. The thing seemed too strange to be true; yet he knew that it was true, for he did not believe that there was another elk like this one in the whole wilderness of America.
"Awi Agwa!" he murmured. "The bull of Sani' gilagi!"
It was a long shot, a very long shot for the rifle of those days, a marvelously accurate weapon but of comparatively short range. Almayne knew that the elk had seen him but that the animal, puzzled by his immobility, was not sure of what he was. He raised the rifle so slowly that the great bull watching him in the middle distance could not detect the movement. He aimed long and carefully, calculating the necessary elevation, figuring the force of the wind.
At the report the elk plunged forward, wheeled and galloped straight away from the hunter. Almayne had not followed the trail fifty yards when he found what he expected to find—a blotch of blood upon the fallen leaves.
