TWENTY YEARS IN THE ROCKIES. 289 



trail. We followed this for six or eight miles and I could 

 see that every fellow wanted to be in at the killing. As we 

 approached a large body of timber on the south side, I pro- 

 posed we get off and lead our horses, in order to go as 

 carefully as possible, so that the elks would not see us first. 



I went ahead, and slowly, until I could see that we 

 were almost at the top. Here the band had scattered and 

 were feeding leisurely along, cutting the tender vegeta- 

 tion and winding through every little park. I came to 

 several large bull tracks and they seemed to be in the rear, 

 which showed me very plainly that the rutting season was 

 over, and the old cow had taken her position at the front. 

 As we were now up the hill and were nearly exhausted 

 from climbing, we mounted our horses and tried to ride 

 very slowly. Woods was in the lead, I called the boys to- 

 gether and told them we were going too fast. 



After going two hundred yards we came to where the 

 herd had been lying down. Woods declared we had scared 

 them and that the jig was- up for today. After looking 

 around we could see where some had been running, so I 

 made a circle and saw that about forty elks had come into 

 the main herd, and that this was the reason for their get- 

 ting up at that time of day. I noticed by the hair on the 

 trees in several places, that they had stopped there to rub 

 themselves. We all advanced with eyes and ears open to 

 catch the first object that moved. Woods was still ahead 

 and on our right. Every one was doing his best to be 

 noiseless and to move along as fast as he could. 



To our right, fully one hundred yards ahead, the old 

 Bullard carried by Woods startled us with a bang that made 

 the mountains ring. With one mighty crash about a hun- 

 dred and forty elks were tearing everything before them in 

 their fright. Woods was the only man who got a shot. We 



