Still-Hunting Elk. 281 



Besides, I had to advance with the greatest caution, 

 keeping the sharpest look-out in front and on all sides 

 of me. Even as it was, though I got very close up to 

 my game, they were on foot before I saw them, and I 

 did not get a standing shot. While carefully looking to 

 my footsteps I paid too little heed to the rifle which I 

 held in my right hand, and let the barrel tap smartly on a 

 tree trunk. Instantly there was a stamp and movement 

 among the bushes ahead and to one side of me ; the elk 

 had heard but had neither seen nor smelt me ; and a 

 second afterward I saw the indistinct, shadowy outlines of 

 the band as they trotted down hill, from where their beds 

 had been made on the very summit of the crest, taking a 

 course diagonal to mine. I raced forward and also down 

 hill, behind some large mossy boulders, and cut them 

 fairly off, the band passing directly ahead of me and not 

 twenty yards away, at a slashing trot, which a few of them 

 changed for a wild gallop, as I opened fire. I was so 

 hemmed in by the thick tree trunks, and it was so difficult 

 to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of each animal, 

 that though I fired four shots I only brought down one 

 elk, a full-grown cow, with a broken neck, dead in its 

 tracks ; but I also broke the hind leg of a bull calf. Elk 

 offer easy marks when in motion, much easier than deer, 

 because of their trotting gait, and their regular, deliberate 

 movements. They look very handsome as they trot 

 through a wood, stepping lightly and easily over the dead 

 trunks and crashing through the underbrush, with the 

 head held up and nose pointing forward. In galloping, 

 however, the neck is thrust straight out in front, and the 



