258 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



absolutely refused to let me come within twenty 

 yards of him for more than four hot and exasperat- 

 ing hours. My cousin, who was with me, dis- 

 mounted when I did, and his horse kept mine 

 company. We were in an alkali desert at the 

 time, and when eventually our animals suffered 

 us to remount them, we swore solemnly that never 

 again would we leave our horses untied. However, 

 to return to my big wapiti: we had seen a large 

 herd quietly grazing on the slopes of a bare hill, 

 and recognising the futility of trying to stalk them, 

 had sent a couple of men to drive them towards a 

 divide in the mountains. We galloped to the same 

 place, making a detour, and only arrived just in 

 time. I took up a station some two hundred yards 

 from my cousin, and marked with dismay the 

 impossibility of tying my horse. Just then the 

 herd began to ascend the slope at my feet, so with- 

 out dismounting I hid behind a rock and awaited 

 them. Long before I had seen through my glasses 

 that the Nestor of them was unusually large, but I 

 had formed no true conception of his truly immense 

 size. I allowed all the others to pass, and presently 

 he trotted by, very slowly, glancing now and a^ain 

 at the men half a mile behind him, apprehending 

 no danger from my cousin and me who were invis- 

 ible and to windward of him. I fired as he was 

 broadside to me, and missed him clean with both 

 barrels of my Express. Before I could reload, he 

 had passed my cousin, who blazed away at longer 

 range, and, being mounted, also missed him as 

 cleanly as I did. We clapped spurs to our animals 

 and had a tremendous gallop over a very stiff and 



