288 Still-Hunting Elk. 



Next morning early we started off to hunt through this 

 country. The walking was hard work, especially up and 

 down the steep cliffs, covered with slippery pine needles ; 

 or among the windfalls, where the rows of dead trees lay 

 piled up across one another in the wildest confusion. 

 We saw nothing until we came to a large patch of burnt 

 ground, where we at once found the soft, black soil 

 marked up by elk hoofs ; nor had we penetrated into it 

 more than a few hundred yards before we came to tracks 

 made but a few minutes before, and almost instantly after- 

 ward saw three bull elk, probably those I had seen on the 

 preceding day. We had been running briskly up-hill 

 through the soft, heavy loam, in which our feet made no 

 noise but slipped and sank deeply ; as a consequence, I 

 was all out of breath and my hand so unsteady that I 

 missed my first shot. Elk, however, do not vanish with 

 the instantaneous rapidity of frightened deer, and these 

 three trotted off in a direction quartering to us. I doubt 

 if I ever went through more violent exertion than in the 

 next ten minutes. We raced after them at full speed, 

 opening fire ; I wounded all three, but none of the 

 wounds were immediately disabling. They trotted on 

 and we panted afterwards, slipping on the wet earth, 

 pitching headlong over charred stumps, leaping on dead 

 logs that broke beneath our weight, more than once 

 measuring our full-length on the ground, halting and fir- 

 ing whenever we got a chance. At last one bull fell ; we 

 passed him by after the others which were still running 

 up-hill. The sweat streamed into my eyes and made fur- 

 rows in the sooty mud that covered my face, from having 



