The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1914-04-07
WENT TO THEIR DEATH
ANIMAL TRAGEDY in THE HIMA.
LAYAN WILDs.
Herd obedIentIy Followed It's Lord
and Master as It Had Been Ac-
customed, With instant, IN
questioning Obedience.

The cruel and savage side Of ma
ture gives F. St. Mars the theme for
some of the most readable stories of
natural history that have appeared in
long time A tragedy of the wild is
Magnificent of the Steps," a story
Of the wonderful takins, the goatlike
antelopes of the eastern Himalayas.
1t is told In ION Natures Trail" The
bull takin has led his herd of three
cows and two young through adven-
lures with snow leopard, with wild
dogs and bears, always demanding
and always being accorded, SO strict
and cruel Is herd law, absolute, I'M
questioning, unhesitating obedience.
Finally the takin herd met hunter.
The herd escaped. But the hunter was
no ordinary hunter. He was IAN
American Of long experience, one who
did not give up things lightly" So
the herd and the hunter met again
And Mr. st. Mars says Of this meet
ing:
AT Jharp bend in the steepest
place, and at point where the path
was narrowest and strung on the
mountainside like spiders web along
wall-just there the bull, who was
leading, stopped dead He had to.
He was looking full into the quiet,
gray eyes Of the hunter, not six yards
away.
THE position was slightly exciting.
None but a bird could have stepped
of that path on either hand-sheer
up, sheer down! Neither could turn
back; and If either went on, some
body would have to get hurt
the silence which followed was
refined and clarified
Death lowered about, waiting to
pounce.
THE double flash and twin report
of the heavy Express rife which fol-
lowed seemed to bring the whole
world of silence tumbling down about
the hunters ears. And the hunters
jaw fell and he gasped. His face
paled to gray. Lines drew about his
eyes. He became in seconds ten
years older.
Nothing had happened That was
the rub
THE hunter had fired both barrels
almost together
He had not missed. Such men as
he do not miss. Yet the bull takin
had not even acknowledged receipt of
either bullet; had not WINGED, even.
He just stood there, like a huge
mass of superb sculpture in black and
bronze, motionless. Nevertheless he
was hit unto death, and he knew it.
Seconds raced with his strength
against the foe. In an instant he
must have measured the distance
from him to the enemy, and the time
1t would take to get there, and have
realized-p probably for the first and
certainly the last time in his implac-
able, intolerate life-the fact that he
was impotent
Il like to think Of what he did then.
1t was SO supreme, SO grand, SO typical
Of the beast.
He tunrned, he screamed one
scream of unauthorized rage, and he
plunged headlong over the edge of the
path to-death. Instantly-and this
was the grandest part of all, perhaps
with answering obedience to discip-
line, the whole herd turned as one
beast and followed him blindly into
oblivion.
The hunter stood like one carved
in stone-he might have been watch
ing the abysmal plunge of human
souls into the pit by the feeling writ
on his strong face-and he counted
the seconds till the faraway thuds an
nounced the washing to pieces of his
quarry on the rocks a thousand or
more feet below
Then he turned away slowly and
retraced his steps.
Magnificent he muttered. And
that was all"