3 '2 Old Ephraim. 



the trail at once. For some distance it led over the soft, 

 yielding carpet of moss and pine needles, and the foot- 

 prints were quite easily made out, although we could fol- 

 low them but slowly ; for we had, of course, to keep a 

 sharp look-out ahead and around us as we walked noise- 

 lessly on in the sombre half-light always prevailing under 

 the great pine trees, through whose thickly interlacing 

 branches stray but few beams of light, no matter how 

 bright the sun may be outside. We made no sound our- 

 selves, and every little sudden noise sent a thrill through 

 me as I peered about with each sense on the alert. Two 

 or three of the ravens that we had scared from the car- 

 cass flew overhead, croaking hoarsely ; and the pine tops 

 moaned and sighed in the slight breeze for pine trees 

 seem to be ever in motion, no matter how light the wind. 

 After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned off 

 on a well-beaten path made by the elk ; the woods were 

 in many places cut up by these game trails, which had 

 often become as distinct as ordinary foot-paths. The 

 beast's footprints were perfectly plain in the dust, and he 

 had lumbered along up the path until near the middle of 

 the hill-side, where the ground broke away and there were 

 hollows and boulders. Here there had been a windfall, 

 and the dead trees lay among the living, piled across one 

 another in all directions ; while between and around them 

 sprouted up a thick growth of young spruces and other 

 evergreens. The trail turned off into the tangled thicket, 

 within which it was almost certain we would find our quarry. 

 We could still follow the tracks, by the slight scrapes of 

 the claws on the bark, or by the bent and broken twigs ; 



