Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 319 



in the red dawn; the wind hardly stirred over the 

 crisp grass; and though the sky was cloudless, yet 

 the weather had that queer, smoky, hazy look that 

 it is most apt to take on during the time of the In 

 dian summer. From a high spur of the tableland we 

 looked out far and wide over a great stretch of 

 broken country, the brown of whose hills and val 

 leys was varied everywhere by patches of dull red 

 and vivid yellow, tokens that the trees were already 

 putting on the dress with which they greet the mor 

 tal ripening of the year. The deep and narrow but 

 smooth ravines running up toward the edges of the 

 plateaus were heavily wooded, the bright green tree- 

 tops rising to a height they rarely reach in the bar 

 ren plains country; and the rocky sides of the sheer 

 gorges were clad with a thick growth of dwarfed 

 cedars, while here and there the trailing Virginia 

 creepers burned crimson among their sombre masses. 

 We hunted stealthily up-wind, across the line of 

 the heavily timbered coulies. We soon saw traces 

 of our quarry ; old tracks at first, and then the fresh 

 footprints of a single elk a bull, judging by the 

 size which had come down to drink at a miry 

 alkali pool, its feet slipping so as to leave the marks 

 of the false hoofs in the soft soil. We hunted with 

 painstaking and noiseless care for many hours; at 

 last, as I led old Manitou up to look over the edge 

 of a narrow ravine, there was a crash and move 

 ment in the timber below me, and immediately after 

 ward I caught a glimpse of a great bull elk trotting 

 up through the young trees as he gallantly breasted 



