TWENTY YEARS IN THE ROCKIES. 235 



This was a discovery to me. I lost no time in stalking 

 the living animal and was soon behind a tree. From this 

 position I could see him as he tore the body to pieces. He 

 tried to cover the remains with earth and brush, occasionally 

 stopping to devour a portion. The sight to me was sickening 

 beyond endurance, so I sent a ball through the monster's 

 shoulders. He promply forgot about his dead comrade, and 

 went down the mountain like a whirlwind, tearing and 

 breaking everything before him. We followed him by aid 

 of sound and blood, as fast as we could, to his lair. A great 

 hole had been dug under a large rock, but he failed to get 

 inside, and his great lank carcass lay stretched out just in 

 front of it. 



We commenced to skin him and I will say here, that the 

 hunter who skins a large bear with his hide full of sand, 

 must have a knife of very superior metal. We were forced 

 to sharpen our knives every few moments. The toes were 

 very hard to cut out, but after severe effort, we finally laid 

 his skin over a pole and started for camp. We had not gone 

 far, when we jumped a large band of black-tail deer. As we 

 had spent our whole day in exploring, and in the killing of 

 one bear, I took a shot at a young doe and brought it down. 

 Its saddles were soon strung upon our pole and we trudged 

 back to camp. 



Our next encounter was with a band of mountain sheep, 

 wending their way upward. Among them was one of the 

 largest bucks I have ever seen, and, though I wished for his 

 great horns, I could not possibly have carried them, so 

 allowed the band to go unmolested. Just for sport I sent a 

 ball near the old lord of the herd, and he turned angrily, 

 with fight expressed in every angle of his body. 



When we came out of the timber below where our horses 

 were secured, we saw that a large band of elks had just gone 



