198 The Wilderness Hunter 



souri to-day every elk (as in the Rockies every buf 

 falo) killed is at once set down as &quot;the last of its 

 race.&quot; For several years in succession I myself 

 kept killing one or two such &quot;last survivors/ 



A yearling bull which I thus obtained was killed 

 while in company with my stanch friend Will Dow, 

 on one of the first trips which I took with that prince 

 of drivers, old man Tompkins. We were laying in 

 our stock of winter meat; and had taken the wagon 

 to go to a knot of high and very rugged hills where 

 we knew there were deer, and thought there might 

 be elk. Old Tompkins drove the wagon with un 

 moved composure up, down, and across frightful- 

 looking hills, and when they became wholly impass 

 able, steered the team over a cut bank and up a kind 

 of winding ravine or wooded washout, until it be 

 came too rough and narrow for further progress. 

 There was good grass for the horses on a hill off 

 to one side of us; and stunted cottonwood trees 

 grew between the straight white walls of clay and 

 sandstone which hemmed in the washout. We 

 pitched our tent by a little trickling spring and 

 kindled a great fire, the fitful glare lighting the bare 

 cliffs and the queer, sprawling tops of the cotton- 

 woods; and after a dinner of fried prairie-chicken 

 went to bed. At dawn we were off, and hunted till 

 nearly noon; when Dow, who had been walking to 

 one side, beckoned to me and remarked, &quot;There s 

 something mighty big in the timber down under 



