Still-Hunting Elk. 289 



fallen full length down on the burnt earth ; I sobbed for 

 breath as I toiled at a shambling trot after them, as nearly 

 done out as could well be. At this moment they turned 

 down-hill. It was a great relief ; a man who is too done 

 up to go a step up-hill can still run fast enough down ; 

 with a last spurt I closed in near enough to fire again ; 

 one elk fell ; the other went off at a walk. We passed 

 the second elk and I kept on alone after the third, not 

 able to go at more than a slow trot myself, and too much 

 winded to dare risk a shot at any distance. He got out 

 of the burnt patch, going into some thick timber in a 

 deep ravine ; I closed pretty well, and rushed after him 

 into a thicket of young evergreens. Hardly was I in 

 when there was a scramble and bounce among them and 

 I caught a glimpse of a yellow body moving out to one 

 side ; I ran out toward the edge and fired through the 

 twigs at the moving beast. Down it went, but when I 

 ran up, to my disgust I found that I had jumped and 

 killed, in my haste, a black-tail deer, which must have 

 been already roused by the passage of the wounded elk. 

 I at once took up the trail of the latter again, but after a 

 little while the blood grew less, and ceased, and I lost the 

 track ; nor could I find it, hunt as hard as I might. The 

 poor beast could not have gone five hundred yards ; yet 

 we never found the carcass. 



Then I walked slowly back past the deer I had slain 

 by so curious a mischance, to the elk. The first one 

 shot down was already dead. The second was only 

 wounded, though it could not rise. When it saw us 

 coming it sought to hide from us by laying its neck flat 



