210 SADDLE AND CAMP 



glimpsed a group of tents which I recognized 

 as a government outfit. I rode up to them and 

 halloed, and two or three men answered the 

 call. It was a United States Geological Sur- 

 vey camp, they told me, and, in answer to my 

 inquiries, said Woodruff was six miles away, 

 straight ahead, too far to go that evening, and 

 invited me to stop with them for the night. 



The camp was in charge of A. E. Murling, 

 a veteran in the department, and with him and 

 his assistants the evening spent here was a par- 

 ticularly pleasant one. They were making the 

 first geological survey of the region. The day 

 before my arrival they had descended from the 

 higher altitudes and had thus escaped the snow 

 that I had encountered. 



All of these forest-covered mountains, with 

 open, grassy parks, were formerly richly 

 stocked with elk, deer, antelope, and bear. A 

 few elk remain, but all the antelope have been 

 killed; deer, while increasing, are not plentiful, 

 although bears are said to be fairly numerous. 

 I did not see one deer track in the fresh snow. 

 The surveyors told me that they had seen some 

 earlier in the fall, as well as bears. 



It is claimed that mountain sheep still in- 

 habit the higher and more rugged mountains 

 of northern and northeastern Utah, but I could 



