244 SADDLE AND CAMP 



Here Leek and I pitched a tent and remained 

 three nights, spending the days in the saddle 

 riding over the surrounding mountains and val- 

 ley. In this tour I read the sickening story of 

 the tragedy of the elk, written in bold charac- 

 ters on every field, on every hill and mountain- 

 side, and by every brook. It was the one sub- 

 ject of conversation, and the traveler through 

 Jackson's Hole cannot avoid it. 



At the point where I forded the Hoback the 

 first indications of dead elk were seen, and all 

 along the trail from the Hoback to the Gros 

 Ventre were scattered bones and tufts of hair 

 of animals that had starved. Bark-stripped 

 willows and quaking aspens and twigs and 

 limbs as large as one's fingers, gnawed down by 

 famished animals in a vain attempt to find sus- 

 tenance in dead sticks, told the story of misery 

 and suffering. 



On the fields wherever I walked and through 

 the foothills were the bones of innumerable elk 

 that had perished within two years. At some 

 points the bones literally lay in piles about 

 bunches of willow with gnawed-off limbs and 

 groves of quaking aspens stripped bare of bark. 



Leek told me that there had been times when 

 he could walk half a mile on the bodies of dead 

 elk. Others reiterated this statement. One 



