Still-Hunting Elk. 291 



with two or three gasping notes which have an unpleas- 

 antly mule-like sound. 



The great pine-clad mountains, their forests studded 

 with open glades, were the best of places for the still- 

 hunter's craft. Going noiselessly through them in our 

 dull-colored buckskin and noiseless moccasins, we kept 

 getting glimpses, as it were, of the inner life of the 

 mountains. Each animal that we saw had its own indi- 

 viduality. Aside from the thrill and tingle that a hunter 

 experiences at the sight of his game, I by degrees grew to 

 feel as if I had a personal interest in the different traits and 

 habits of the wild creatures. The characters of the animals 

 differed widely, and the differences were typified by their 

 actions ; and it was pleasant to watch them in their own 

 homes, myself unseen, when after stealthy, silent progress 

 through the sombre and soundless depths of the woods I 

 came upon them going about the ordinary business of their 

 lives. The lumbering, self-confident gait of the bears, 

 their burly strength, and their half-humorous, half-fero- 

 cious look, gave me a real insight into their character ; 

 and I never was more impressed by the exhibition of vast, 

 physical power, than when watching from an ambush a 

 grizzly burying or covering up an elk carcass. His 

 motions looked awkward, but it was marvellous to see the 

 ease and absence of effort with which he would scoop out 

 great holes in the earth, or twitch the heavy carcass from 

 side to side. And the proud, graceful, half-timid, half- 

 defiant bearing of the elk was in its own way quite as 

 noteworthy ; they seemed to glory in their own power and 

 beauty, and yet to be ever on the watch for foes against 



