32 WAPITI HUNTING. 



of getting a big wapiti. We hurried across to the yard where the 

 smaller buck lay. He jumped up and ran, but my second shot brought 

 him down once more. Leaving the hunters to skin this animal I 

 hurried on to pick up the big stag's trail. I was sure I had hit him, 

 but the trail I found bore no testimony to this effect. The sun had 

 set. Darkness would be on us in half an hour, and we were fully ten 

 miles from camp. I felt sure that I would be able to pick up and 

 follow the trail of the big wapiti next day, and doubted not that I would 

 find him at no great distance, so decided to return to camp forthwith. 

 As we set out with the skin and head of the small stag, the last glimmer 

 of daylight faded away, and we had a long tramp in the dark, finally 

 arriving at our village tired out, but full of hope for what the next day 

 would bring us. 



We were doomed to disappointment, however, for though we found 

 the trail easily enough, it soon got mixed up with half a dozen others, 

 just as fresh. When at last, after infinite pains we had unravelled the 

 tangled skein, the treacherous sun was melting the snow that had lain 

 undiminished for a week, and soon we hopelessly lost the trail in a 

 wide valley, whence all the snow had evaporated.. Finally 

 I had to be content with a couple of small bucks. The 

 two days following I searched the whole country for my big 

 buck, but in vain. At the end of the second day, some wood cutters 

 told me that they had seen a large deer with fine antlers travelling 

 northward fifty li away. It had a broken leg and two dogs were worry- 

 ing it. Also a couple of hunters had gone after it. Then I gave up. 

 ^ly two hunters, who had faithfully stuck to me, were worn out, and 

 the hope that had kept me going during those days of remorseless 

 tracking and searching over such country, and in such weather left me, 

 and I realized that I had never been so tired in my life. 



Further more our time was up, so after a day spent in packing, we 

 left the hunting grounds on our way back to civilization and the longed 

 for comforts of home. But the thought of those antlers, lost, gone to 

 swell another man's bag, is, and will continue to be the bitterest re- 

 miniscence of many failures in the hunting field. 



