The Elk of the Pacific Coast 185 



Perhaps, though, you are not adapted to climb- 

 ing such rough hillsides and scrambling over such 

 great windfalls on slopes so steep that you know 

 not where you may land on the other side. Well, 

 in the deep silence where the redwoods have not 

 yet felt the hand of man, you may find smoother 

 slopes and forest aisles that reach farther with- 

 out a bend, with vaster columns of fluted brown 

 supporting the great canopy of green that shuts 

 out nearly all the sun. The dim, religious light 

 that sleeps in this great temple is well suited 

 to set off to the utmost the rich colors of the elk, 

 but you must have keen eyes to see. If you 

 have never been here before, you will naturally 

 be looking for something the size of a horse on 

 the open plain, with the additional advantage of 

 horns so large that they will sparkle afar through 

 the gloom. Little do you imagine that you cannot 

 see more than the tips of them, and these tips so 

 lost in the great jumble of dead branches, which 

 twist in a thousand directions, that your eye 

 might rest on them without recognition. Even 

 in the more open places ferns rise upon ferns to 

 hide the legs of the tallest elk, while salal and 

 a score of other shrubs which flourish in the 

 shade are so rank that a patch of hair is the 

 most you can see. And if your game starts to 

 run, you will see little more than a succession 

 of such patches moving in a panorama of sur- 



