Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 299 



land are densely wooded with tall pines. Its top 

 forms what is called a park country; that is, it is 

 covered with alternating groves of trees and open 

 glades, each grove or glade varying in size from 

 half a dozen to many hundred acres. 



We went in with the pack train two days' jour- 

 ney before pitching camp in what we intended to 

 be our hunting grounds, following an old Indian 

 trail. No one who has not tried it can understand 

 the work and worry that it is to drive a pack train 

 over rough ground and through timber. We were 

 none of us very skilful at packing, and the loads 

 were all the time slipping; sometimes the ponies 

 would stampede with the pack half tied, or they 

 would get caught among the fallen logs, or in a 

 ticklish place would suddenly decline to follow the 

 trail, or would commit some one of the thousand 

 other tricks which seem to be all a pack-pony knows. 

 Then at night they were a bother; if picketed out 

 they fed badly and got thin, and if they were not 

 picketed they sometimes strayed away. The most 

 valuable one of the lot was also the hardest to catch. 

 Accordingly we used to let him loose with a long 

 lariat tied round his neck, and one night this lariat 

 twisted up in a sage-brush, and in struggling to 

 free himself the pony got a half-hitch round his 

 hind leg, threw himself, and fell over a bank into 

 a creek on a large stone. We found him in the 

 morning very much the worse for wear and his hind 

 legs swelled up so that his chief method of pro- 

 gression was by a series of awkward hops. Of 



