One evening, as the sun was setting, I felt a necessity of hearing the crack of my rifle. Czar had fattened up again, and Trusty was anxiously awaiting the day when I should recover from my indolence. I rode down the river to a small pond on the prairie, which was filled with rain water in the winter and retained it till far into the summer. Strangely enough, all animals prefer this water to any other, and will go a long distance to drink it. I led Czar into the bushes, threw his bridle over a branch, and sat down on the edge of the forest upon the roots of an old oak, waiting for the game that might come to water. It was growing dark when a herd of deer came across the prairie and posted themselves on a hill behind the pond. They were all rather large, but one of them had antlers far larger than the rest. After a short halt they advanced up to the water hole, with the big deer at their head. It had drunk, and was raising its head with the mighty antlers, when I pulled the trigger, and the bullet struck behind the shoulder blade. He ran away from the other deer to a broad, rather deep ravine, formed by the torrents, and which gradually grew narrower. I mounted Czar after reloading, and rode after the deer, which suddenly rose before me and leaped up the steep wall of the ravine. It was already very dark, and I was afraid of losing the deer, hence I called Trusty to follow it. Nothing could please him better; he ran after it up the wall, and pursued it into the prairie with loud barking. As the spot was too steep for me, I ran back, and when I reached the prairie lower down I saw the deer proceeding towards the woods, and two dogs instead of one following it. I gave Czar the reins, in order to cut the deer off; but Trusty caught it at the moment, and the supposed second dog, an enormous white wolf, attacked my dog. All three lay atop of each other, when I leaped from my horse within shot, and hurried to the scene of action. The wolf noticed me and tried to bolt, but Trusty held it tightly, and I ran within ten paces of them. The two animals were leaping up savagely at each other, when my bullet passed through the wolf's side, and Trusty settled it. The deer, which had thirty tines, had got up again, but soon fell on a leap from Trusty, and I killed it. I then rode home, fetched a two-wheeled cart drawn by a mule, drove out with one of my men, and brought back the deer and the wolf, whose skin, though not so fine as in winter, still made an excellent carpet under our dining-table.