194 The Wilderness Hunter. 



every day from morning^ till night, no matter what the 

 weather. It was stormy, with hail and snow almost every 

 day ; and after working hard from dawn until flightfall, 

 laboriously climbing the slippery mountain-sides, walking 

 through the wet woods, and struggling across the bare 

 plateaus and clifT-shoulders, while the violent blasts of 

 wind drove the frozen rain in our faces, we would come 

 in after dusk wet through and chilled to the marrow. 

 Even when it rained in the valleys it snowed on the 

 mountain-tops, and there was no use trying to keep our 

 feet dry. I got three shots at bull elk, two being very 

 hurried snap-shots at animals running in thick timber, the 

 other a running-shot in the open, at over two hundred 

 yards ; and I missed all three. On most days I saw no 

 bull worth shooting ; the two or three I did see or hear 

 we failed to stalk, the light, shifty wind baffling us, or else 

 an outlying cow which we had not seen giving the alarm. 

 There were many blue and a few ruffed grouse in the 

 woods, and I occasionally shot off the heads of a couple 

 on my way homeward in the evening. In racing after 

 one elk, I leaped across a gully and so bruised and twisted 

 my heel on a rock that, for the remainder of my stay in 

 the mountains, I had to walk on the fore part of that 

 foot. This did not interfere much with my walking, 

 however, except in going down-hill. 



Our ill success was in part due to sheer bad luck ; but 

 the chief element therein was the presence of a great 

 hunting-party of Shoshone Indians. Split into bands of 

 eight or ten each, they scoured the whole country on 

 their tough, sure-footed ponies. They always hunted on 



