Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/282

248 with heavy ordnance rifle, cartouch-box, ammunition and accoutrements, pea jacket, fishermen's boots and sou'-wester, took long shots (of about three hundred yards), to the imminent danger of the runners, and then floundering along over balsam-bogs, tussock clumps, and 'diddle-dee' bushes, arrived thoroughly blown at the top of a hill immediately overlooking the scene of action. The herd was hieing off in the distance; all but one fine cow which the hounds detained. 'Yorke,' a noble dog, held her by the throat: 'Laporte,' his scarcely less powerful comrade, had seized the middle of the tail; and 'anchored' her, in spite of kicks and struggles, which caused him to twist round and round as if on a pivot; whilst little 'Bully,' a smaller more mastiff-like dog, had fixed histeeth into the poor brute's tongue, and all were mingling their snarls and stifled barks with her pitiful moans. It was a most cruel sight; but happily her sufferings did not last long. A runner, scarcely less fleet than the hounds, was already up with his knife, and quick as lightning hamstrung both hind-legs: she fell with a deep agonised low to the ground: he sprang to her shoulder like a savage, and before she could turn her head to butt plunged the steel into her neck; when she rolled over, a dying creature. One fierce dog thrust his muzzle into the gaping wound, and the others were already lapping the blood: they were kicked off with violence, and with the men started like the wind after the herd; for so short a time did all this take, that the remainder of the cattle were still in sight. A young bull and heifer were in like manner consecutively seized by the dogs, hamstrung and despatched by these swift-of-foot men, who then gave up the chase. They next cleaned, skinned and quartered the animal last killed with marvellous celerity, and returned to the second; each bearing a quarter on his shoulder, its fibre still quivering, as it appeared, from the effects of the hard run, so abruptly brought to a close. The second was treated in like