Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/50

 to watch the process, and it was as interesting as the working out of a great puzzle.To an ordinary white man who knew little of the woods or of hunting, it was magic pure and simple.

The closing in of the native hunter on his game was a stirring thing to watch. Long centuries of hunting with bows and arrows, feeble, short-range weapons, had bred into the Indian the habit of getting close up, and his having a gun made no difference with his habit.

Carrying his body low crouched so that it seemed to glide along the ground like a snake, placing each step with noiseless certainty and going through the underbrush as quietly as a fish in water, the stealthy panther-like quality of the Indian here showed at its best, for, close to his prey, fairly vibrating with tense and subdued energy, the Indian of the chase was a very dif-