finally stopping at about 13 yards facing me head on. Finally he picks me out, and rips out a bugle right in my face. By this point, I am shaking like a leaf on a tree! He decides he doesn’t like what he sees, and turns to go back down the hill when I let him have a 300 grain Thor. He trots off about around the hill about 30 yards and out of sight as I try to reload as quickly as possible, while listening for a crash. Nothing. I crept up to where he was when I shot to look for blood. Nothing. I am in disbelief! I slowly work my way to where I last saw him, looking for blood. Nothing! I checked all around where he stopped where I last saw him, and STILL no blood, and worse, NO BULL! Some time has passed, and now I am exploring every direction he could have went, following tracks, but not finding any reassuring signs of a hit. I spend close to an hour unsuccessfully looking, and start to think, well maybe something happened. Did I hit a tree??? Did I miss amidst the shaking and excitement???? 13 yards??? NO WAY I could miss….right!?!?!?! Maybe I made a poor shot and grazed him or worse, wounded him. I had flashbacks to losing a wounded bull, and started to feel that sick feeling. More about 15 minutes of searching has passed, and by this time I am freaking out. I decide to walk down over the hill one more time in a last ditch effort, knowing that if he crashed, I would have heard it because of how thick it was. I look, and look, and look some more, now certain that something went wrong. I’m working my way back up this steep hill cussing everything from my gun to myself, to the fact that I decided to even go muzzleloader hunting again after I swore it off. I stopped to catch my breath, and look off to my right down the hill about 20 yards, and HOLY SHEEP Sh!T, there he is! He’s bedded down, still alive, but not getting up. At this point, I knew he was hit hard, especially because he hadn’t bolted amongst my thrashing around in the brush looking for him. I give him another one, right in the vitals, and he get ups and bolts! He only makes it a little ways before he went down for good.